On the evening of July 25th 2004 I'd gone out intending to get some astronomical pictures, but instead I found the sky lit up with the Aurora Borealis. This was an unusually intense storm that created the rarer red and purple colors along with the more common yellows and greens. The sky was pulsing with waves of light and ionization. Usually the aurora is dim enough that time exposures easily show the background stars, but this night the sheer brightness overwhelmed them. The colors are created at altitudes of 100 to 300 km after the solar wind ionizes oxygen and nitrogen. The oxygen and nitrogen give off their characteristic yellow, green, red, and deep red colors as they settle back to their normal states.

Bright red auroras are the most energetic and spectacular, and to some people they can be frightening. In the 1580's people of central Europe were terrified by a blood red aurora, believing it was an omen of disaster. It is recorded that some people went insane from fright and worry. It inspired thousands to go on pilgrimages before what they believed was the coming disaster of bloody battles and burning cities. Even in our day, during intense displays of northern lights, people as far south as Florida, Texas, and Arizona have clogged emergency lines to report a pulsating and flaming red glow in the night sky.