"Jim Macklin" wrote in
:

I prefer the solid ground for night sky viewing.

Fully understand this!

I've got a
place with no nearby light pollution, millions more stars
are visible. One clear night a few years ago, there was
snow cover but no clouds at all, I was out driving by the
airport and wondered why they had the strobes running, then
I realized it was a meteor storm, the flashes were so bright
they were casting shadows on the snow and leaving smoke
trails in the sky.

Let me guess, the Leonids? One night flight home, saw a "fireball".
Scared the bejeebers outta me it was so bright. And like you saw, smoke
trail followed it. At first, thought it was a plane blowing up, but
having seen meteors before, I knew better just from the speed, length and
angle of the flash. More lights upstairs then downstairs on most of my
night flights :-))

It was late at night, so I stayed out several hours
watching. I made just one mistake, I told my wife about it.
She was tired and had to get up to go to her college class.
I thought she would not want to be disturbed. I told her
and she has never forgiven me.

Yep, though different situation here, it was the Northern lights. Woke
my wife up at 2 a.m. and it was -15F, but she didn't regret it! Would
love to see that from 5000 feet!

I was kinda hoping the sunspot causing the radiation commotion would have
kept up so it would kick up some northern lights, but that simmered down.
Wouuldn't have been good for the GPS network though I'd suspect?

Allen