Aurora sighting

[dobserver]

Hi,

While at the Salisbury Star Party on Monday night/Tuesday morning 25/26 October at around 2am, those of us lucky enough to still be up observing were treated to our very own personal but unanticipated light show, courtesy of the magnetic field and a strange solar flare.

It started with two vertical shafts of light in the North, which I thought at first were car headlights. Then the right hand shaft moved Eastwards and I noticed it had become surrounded by a red glow. Very slowly the glow increased and the light shafts changed, becoming more numerous, fading, or moving from side to side. This amazing spectacle went on for around 20 minutes, while we Ooohed and Aaahed and picked our chins up off the grass.

With me to witness the spectacle were DarkKnight, Astrokat and Cloudbuster, shortly followed by Shaula as she spotted it coming back from her most fortuitous trip to the loo! The rays of light slowly faded to leave just the red glow, which then very slowly disappeared, leaving us stunned and very grateful to have been right there, right then, and very much alive

Sadly nobody had a camera rigged up at the time. We thought about it but weren't sure how long the show was going to last and nobody wanted to miss even a second of it. However I did find the following link, from a North American reporting of the same Aurora and the picture is exactly what we saw.

Northern lights take unusual trip down south - Yahoo! News

So that's one thing ticked off my bucket list......

[Budgie]

Some images from that auroral event are on SGL:

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-widefield-special-events-comets/161125-fantastic-aurora.html

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-widefield-special-events-comets/161160-24-25-oct-2011-aurora-hebrides.html

You did well to see it that far south, it's a great sight isn't it and one I never get tired of watching.

[shaula]

With me to witness the spectacle were DarkKnight, Astrokat and Cloudbuster, shortly followed by Shaula as she spotted it coming back from her most fortuitous trip to the loo!

I have never been so happy to have got up in the middle of the night!

Claire