That would be so cool! I've been amazed at how many stars are visible on a clear night 'round these parts. Many more than are visible back in the mid-Atlantic.

Before you die, go "North To Alaska" in the fall or winter and see the Northern Lights. Easily one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

The article says 1am EST Thursday, which is 10pm PST tonight for us, not tomorrow. Even still, we're usually at too low a latitude to witness these things and there's a full moon tonight, which doesn't help.

But, you never know.

Yes, it's tonight; I corrected the headline a little while ago.

It must have been in the latter 70's, I was walking toward home along the beach north of Cascade Head after a party (ahem...). At first I thought it was strange that auto headlights were pointed upward toward the sky in the direction of Pacific City. I figured the shimmering effect was due to the lights filtering through the fir trees. Then I realized 101 was nowhere near that location! And it dawned on me I was witnessing my first (and last) aurora borealis. Not really any color that I could discern, just drapes of whitish light shimmering. Pretty cool, though.

I'll be out looking tonight, but about that moon... Oh well, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are pretty spectacular now, too.

Saw them once while camping in the Jeff. It was cool.

Also, chasing Mars, the sodium-yellow glow of Saturn passes overhead all night, rises in the east opposite Venus as she sets.

That displays all four easily visible planets, a 'full house'. To discern planets from stars, remember planets don't twinkle, only stars twinkle.

Nevermind hiking off to Alaska -- central Oregon and around the Great Basin at high elevation (over 4000 ft above sea level), provides the most stars in view. More than seen from a boat on the ocean in total darkness, by my eye-witness. In Oregon's high desert I like to say There are stars in-between all the usual stars.
(There are no stars visible east of the Mississippi River, shrouded permanently under smokey industrial air pollution.) The best view is from mountain tops; so big telescopes are built on Kitt Peak, Mt. Palomar, Mauna Loa(?), Taos wherEVer.

I saw the aurora once in eastern Oregon in the early 1960s. It was a deep red-pink glow without filaments or features, around the horizon from northeast to west, up halfway to the zenith, obvious soon after sundown and persisting past midnight when I went to sleep. I supposed it was a forest-fire glow from somewhere in the Cascades forests. It would have had to be a widespread fire (hundreds of sq. miles extent) but no forest fire was going on. It was several days before I realized it was the aurora.

Later I learned that below about 45 degrees latitude, (south of Salem), northern lights appear almost never with fine details and always as a diffuse 'glow.'

Seeing the real deal up close and spectacular, is a wish on my bucket list. Probably that means Alaska here I come.

The native peoples in the polar region have evolved an epistemological spiritual reverence by the lights of aurora borealis for life and tingly awe and human-nature understanding. In discussions of it, Eskimos and Inuits and others sound (to me) like talking with someone enjoying a Sunday psychedelic afternoon.

I doubt the coronal mass ejection this time was sufficient to cause much difference in the arctic winter show. Time will tell what it amounts to. The TV hype of CMEs and Northern Lights sounds like the TV hype of SNOW! SNOW! Be very afraid ... and helpless: Overstated BUT ... stay tuned.

I saw them some years ago while driving on I-5 just north of Vancouver. Have to check tonight!

It is worth the effort to see them. I was on my way to Chena Hot Springs after flying into Fairbanks this January. Pure luck that it was after the earlier solar event occurred. Our shuttle driver pulled the van off the road at 2 AM and we all piled out to watch in awe. It was right up there with observing a total solar eclipse: A must see.

If I could take time off this month, I would have booked this trip. http://www.icelandair.us/offers-and-bookings/book-packages/package/item534585/Iceland_Northern_Lights_&_Glacier_Walk/

I was out last night around 2 in the morning and thought I saw something. I'm in Easter Oregon. Unfortunately I didn't know to be looking so just passed it off as fatigue.

On a dark night out here in the desert the sky is lit up like a christmas tree.