Photo: Stephen Vitiello

From:     Stephen Vitiello
Subject:     Re: financial update (so far)
Date:     October 14, 2009 11:18:29 AM CDT
To:     Steve Dietz
Cc:     Matt Flowers

Photo: Stephen Vitiello

no NL to be seen. We went to visit this guy Stu Ross last night. We paid him $40 each for an evening at his cabin. Not to sleep but to have a sort of speed-education in the Northern Lights, as well as a slide show and then access to his lakefront view to the sky. He does these “Aurora Tours” which have produced incredible photographs. The tourism brochures and websites make it seem like you just come here and the sky is filled with color but that’s not always true at all. He said on a great year, you may see lights 20 nights out of the month on the ‘peak’ months. This was predicted to be a big year and season for the lights but the predictions haven’t come true. He’s barely seen anything and nothing in the last week at all. It sounds like 2012 is supposed to be the high-point on the 12-year cycle. We took lots of pictures. There was too much interference from phone lines to do VLF recordings but there’s one spot I can return to today to do those. Stu said that there’s a chance of NL activity tonight but it may be too cloudy to see – prediction is for snow today, rain and snow tomorrow. If it looks good, he’ll call us and we’ll jump in the car. Otherwise, we may go close to his place without paying him and just get our last shots tonight. Matt stays for one extra night. I can certainly make something but it’s more of a “waiting for the lights” piece. Sadly, Fort McMurray is not a pretty town at all but if you go 30 minutes out on the lake, where Stu lives is at least more rural, charming and dark at night. best, Stephen

See Looking for aurora borealis.