Northern Lights 26.09.2011 Timelapse

[MrJulius]

Last night there were spectacular northern lights or Aurora Borealis over a large part of Europe. I managed to catch a glimpse of the first eruption at 19 UTC and I was ready with the camera when the even bigger shock hit at about 21 UTC. You could visually see the red part glow at zenith and the green lights waving with what looked like giant lightsabers

Of course I managed to misalign the focus on the most spectacular part of the display, but other segments are still nice. You can watch the Timelapse at Vimeo, I reccomend fullscreen HD and to turn scaling off if your monitors resolution is 1280*800 or above.

Northern Lights Timelapse 26.09.2011 Norway on Vimeo

Enjoy

[lukebl]

That is awesome. Brilliant captures. Having still never seen an aurora, I am determined to get to Northern Norway in the spring to have a go!

[MrJulius]

Thanks

When it hits big you should be able to get more than a glimpse of the aurora. The solar cycle are building up and it should be more of these in the months to come until 2013. You don't need to travel all the way to northern Norway, althought is is probably even more spectacular and guaranteed to be observable there. I have only seen northern lights here at 59N .

To find out if the auroras are visible from your location, you first need the find your corrected Geomagnetic Latitude which you can find by clicking at your location on this map at NOAA.

Then you can check out this table to find the activity level needed for the auroas to be visible at your geomagnetic latitude after that you can check out the NOAA POES satelitte to see the activity level. You can see when it last passed over the pole and if it was a close pass and thus more certain, N-number equal to 1 or less.

You should also check out he KP-index but it is often more slowly updated.

NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center

http://www.spaceweather.com

[ScubaMike]

I'm going to be at 57 40' North next week, I really hope there will be some aurora that much further south.

[MrJulius]

Giant sunspot group 1302 is crossing the sun. So any eurptions will send a cme straight at us, therefore I think you have a good chance, if the weather holds up. Last nights display would be easily visible at 57N

Just watch Spaceweather.com

[laser_jock99]

Wonderfull.

[JB80]

That's a really nice video, so jealous that you guys can get to see that.

It's going to have to hit real big to break down to Brussels and cut through the LP.

[saturn5]

That is awesome. Brilliant captures. Having still never seen an aurora, I am determined to get to Northern Norway in the spring to have a go!

As Mr Julius says,no need to go to Northern Norway.The North coast of Scotland will get you great displays and when the KP index is 7,8 or 9 then the displays will match those of Northern Norway.Very little light pollution either as the Northern horizon is the sea,so other than Orkney,there is nothing but water till you get to Iceland. Last night the leading edge of the aurora oval was directly over 59N so it would have been visible in the middle of England.The last KP 9 event was seen in France.

Scubamike,you will only need a KP index of 4to 5 to get a reasonable display at 57N