The massive and impressive northern lights seen across North America on Friday night drew many Chatham-area residents out catch the beautiful display.
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Brian Thomas of Chatham, originally from Saskatchewan, said he’d seen the northern lights, or Aurora Borealis, plenty of times before.
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A member of the Windsor chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Thomas said he’d also seen the northern lights before in southern Ontario, but that Friday’s display was unprecedented.
“I’ve never seen aurora of that intensity down here in southern Ontario, it was just amazing,” he said.
Thomas Although was well aware a massive geomagnetic storm was forecast, he said the display was far more impressive than he anticipated.
“I just expected to see maybe a little bit of green banding along the northern horizon.”
Thomas said he could see what he thought were clouds coming from directly overhead, “then it turned out to be just this big ray of northern lights and it just expanded from there.”
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Allegra Bizzarini, one of many international students attending high school in Chatham-Kent, couldn’t have picked a better year to come to Canada.
The 18-year-old Italian woman saw the total eclipse in early April, and now the Aurora Borealis — both, since arriving last fall to attend classes at Chatham-Kent secondary school.
“It is something I could probably only see once in my life and I saw it in Canada,” she said. “That made me feel it is my place here even though I wasn’t born here.”
Seeing the display in person, Bizzarini said, was like seeing “a painting in the sky (that) you can’t describe, compared to seeing it in photos.”
Much of North America saw Friday’s display, including at southern latitudes where the northern lights aren’t normally visible, in the fallout of a powerful solar storm.
“It was almost like the perfect storm in a way,” Thomas said.
Noting the sun goes through an 11-year cycle where it is very active, he said, “We are at the peak of solar activity. . . so there could be another showing of northern lights, hopefully.”
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