By 1am, most of the group had given up for the night, but I kept ducking out to the car park every 1/2 hour or so for a quick look in case things improved. The reason I didn't stay out the whole time is that it was extremely cold that night. For a long time, all I could make out were some faint, tornado-like arcs to the east and to the west, presumably the edges of the auroral oval seen in projection. I snapped off a few photos, but it wasn't long before my batteries gave up due to the sheer cold. It wasn't until I got my photos developed a few days later that I realised just how colourful these displays had been.
About 3am I went out again, to find the aurora now covering half the sky,
not as bright or active as the last time, but beautiful nonetheless.
Looking straight up, I was greeted with sight of the "corona". This is
what happens when you are directly underneath the rayed bands, or
curtains. All the rays are parallel, but so high up that they appear to
come together (like railway tracks in the distance), right in the Big Dipper.
Just how cold did it get that night? Would you believe -22F? (I prefer -30C,
since it sounds more impressive!). Who says we don't suffer for our art?
On to Night 4...