After a wonderful display of aurora the night before, we packed up our cameras and headed for a dark sky site, the Dudley Farm, located northwest of Warrensburg, Missouri. After it quit raining, the sky cleared quickly and all that was left was the pesky moon and a large band of alto cirrus trailing across the western sky. We began observing about 6:00 UT April 1 and almost immediatly saw faint hints of red in the northeast. The hints were enought to start shooting at seemingly aurora-free sky but in the long run it was productive. the aurora was there... just too faint for the human eye most of the time. The clouds/ con-trails and a setting moon made for a nice image by itself... but the red spike of aurora made it even more interesting. With temperatures dropping into the 20's things got a little frosty and foggy near the pond and made for more interesting photographs. The neighbors yard lights provided illumination for the fog, but a horrible case of light pollution for viewing and photographing the sky in that direction. After the moon set the sky became very dark, but there were little traces of the aurora left... both to the eye and to the film.
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