The sky on the 10th was unexpectedly clear, and the fact that the dazzling display was overhead meant that I was able to take pictures right in my tree ringed, light polluted front yard.

Pictures were taken on a handheld Google Pixel 6, night vision, 3-5 second exposure. The colors were less vivid by naked eye, but these still photographs only hint at the dramatic flashing and roiling that were visible that way. At one point I realized that the reason every time I tried to focus on something it seemed to dissolve was that I was seeing aurora mostly through the rods in my peripheral vision.

I subscribe to an aurora app in order to get notice.

My first aurora experience had a Harvard link. It was freshman or sophomore year, coming back from visiting friends at Bennington with the Fitzgerald brothers and ... I don't remember who else. We stopped because we saw lights on a horizon where there shouldn't be a town, and we wondered if we had gotten lost. There was a huge dramatic display, with intense reds etc., culminating in a meteoric fireball radiating from the center trailing a fiery shower. If we had not confirmed it to one another, we wouldn't have believed our eyes.