Wow...I went outside last night and got to see the Northern Lights. It wasn't a matter of squinting or looking in the right portion of the sky either because the entire sky was alive with light.
At one point it looked like an explosion of light had its epicenter over our house and then radiated out from there in a myriad of red, orange, magenta, and purple colors. These lightened and then met a streams of greenish-blue colors that seemed to bursting upwards from the horizon.
The colors would start to fade and then suddenly streaks of brighter colors would appear, the pattern would shift, and another symphony of electromagnetic beauty would begin to play.
We don't have much light pollution where we live and so the stars are usually pretty bright. The Big Dipper was on its side directly across the street from us, framed by the road itself, but even those stars faded into the background as the Northern Lights took the lead in the dance of the stars.
Ok, enough of the imagery....suffice to say that it was wicked cool!