Stargazing

Carl had gotten information that there had been quite a bit of sun storm activity, which has the potential to impact ratio signals (including ham radio) and GPS signals, and also has the potential to create ideal conditions to see the northern (and southern) lights. Normally they would not be seen as far south as we are in Washington, but the skies were projected to be clear, we had found a spot in the campground where there was a large open field away from lights, so we headed there an hour or so after sunset to see what we could see.

While we did not see the northern lights, we did get to see a beautiful night sky filled with stars and a few other flying things too! We also found that our Google Pixel phones have some neat nighttime settings that allowed us to get interesting pictures...

Looking north

Looking west

The International Space Station went by and caused a streak in the sky (there is another lighter streak perpendicular to the ISS's streak that we think may have been a shooting star, though we did not see it with our eyes)

The Pixel creates the image over a 4 minute time period, and somehow compensates for the movement that the earth's rotation would make in the star placement. We had gotten a mount for the phone that fit onto our tripod so it would be steady for the whole 4 minutes.

It was nice to experience the quietness and the darkness together!