Aurora in Coventry?????

[Tim]

How typical is this,  Im in my obsy doing a bit of work now the skies have finally cleared, my wife puts the dogs out and sees the sky is deep red, graduating upwards. Calls my son, he sees it too. Then just as soon, it is gone.

The only explanation I can think is aurora, but in Coventry????? Is there high activity at the moment? Any other explanation???

 

 

[Davey-T]

Not according to AuroraWatch.

Dave

[cletrac1922]

Tim

Even though in Southern Hemisphere, and do not see them were I am

Space weather give predictions as well of pending aurora

From what you explaining, just one of those instantaneous moments

Lot to do with impending solar winds

I use Spaceweather to monitor sunspot activity

Extract today's Spaceweather 

 

HOLES IN THE SUN'S ATMOSPHERE: No CME? No problem. Auroras may still be in the offing. A network of holes in the sun's atmosphere is facing Earth, spewing a filamentary stream of solar wind in our direction:

The gaseous material could arrive as early as March 26th, although March 27-28 is more likely. The approaching stream is not as potent as a CME, but it could be geoeffective anyway. At this time of year, are opening Earth's magnetic field--a phenomenon known as the "Russell-McPherron effect." Even gentle gusts of solar wind can ignite bright auroras around the Arctic Circle.

 

http://www.spaceweather.com/ 

 

[Tim]

My lad is talented at art, i'll get him to draw what they saw. 

Wouldnt you know it, the batteries had just died in my camera that was working on the mount,  but I will go back through images just in case.

[Stu]

Tim, I had read some recent reports ie last few days, about the Aurora being seen further south, so it may have been possible.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6844273/amp/Glimmer-hope-catch-Northern-Lights-tonight-say-Met-Office.html

BBC News - Northern Lights could be visible in NI
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47672003

 

[Beulah]

I've been following the aurora forecasts closely during the last few days and there's been not a peep in the area of charged particles hitting our atmosphere...

Wonder whether there was some sort of light show somewhere else in the city?

It would be interesting if there was something on the camera or see what your son comes up with. Would be cool if you did see it...

[Knight of Clear Skies]

A midnight barbeque in Coventry perhaps?

[maw lod qan]

Years back, we had what you described even in mid Florida. It was a period of a quite active sun then.

Seeing the real thing is on my bucket list.

[cotterless45]

The majority of times that I've seen the Aurora in the far north , the main and brightest colour has been green. This can be tinged with red / purple. There's been a few daft laser and light events around here .

I've seen the Aurora from home just the once , it was a few long streaks of green. My best ever sighting was on Skye in the 70's. The whole sky was flickering bands of bright green. It's always worth looking out if the solar activity forecast is indicative,

old Nick.

[carastro]

The one time I saw aurora in the UK was in 2011 when I was at the Kelling Heath star party in Norfolk.  I was imaging at the time with a DSLR actually doing the M81 M82, so pointing north.  There had been some very large sunspots a few days before (which I had also imaged).  Sadly for the majority this was on the Monday evening when many folk had already gone home.  

I saw these two narrow beams of white light at angles to each other and thought initially they were laser beams and was annoyed they might interrupt my imaging.   But then I thought a) They were not really sharp enough to be laser beams.  b) Then I thought, "but there are no towns or villages in that direction, only farm fields".  Then as I was suddenly pondering, some-one came rushing up saying it was the aurora. 

The light was not green, but white and slowly moved lasting only a couple of minutes.   

When I examined my imaging afterwards, all the images that I took around that time were extremely red.   But I did not see that red visually.

So basically just some info for the OP to consider.

Since then I went to Iceland to see the "whole works", but again I only saw white light with my eyes, but the camera saw green light after a couple of seconds long exposure.

Any-one know why sometimes you can see colour with Aurora and sometimes all you see is white light.

Carole 

[Carbon Brush]

Ref Carole's comments.

Our eyes can discern low light level.  But need a higher light level to establish colour. So a dim light is white and a brighter light shows colour.
This is why we see fields at night in grey scale, but a camera reveals full colours.

The Kelling Heath aurora was probably a dim red, maybe Ha wavelength? Our eyes are not especially sensitive here so the aurora was unnoticed.
The camera is of course quite sensitive to red - it needs to be for imaging.

As for Coventry. Dunno!

David.

[F15Rules]

Hi Tim, 

I'm from Coventry originally (Whitmore Park), and as a teenager often saw bright orange-red sky all around at night..

I used to call it Aurora Sodiumaris Painintheneckicum!!

Dave

[Peter Drew]

I've seen a couple of World class aurorae one from here at the Astronomy Centre and one from Derbyshire. The last aurora we've seen from here was last year, barely visible to the eye but showed up well with the camera. I suspect that we miss many that are just too faint with the naked eye but could have been detected photographically.     ?

[Moonshane]

On Saturday night about 630pm, the sky was a really incredible deep red over Manchester. which is more of less west of me. I just put it down to a particularly red sunset perhaps caused by murk over Manc.

[DeepSkyBagger]

If the aurora was visible from Coventry, then it would have been visible (conditions permitting) over the rest of the country north of Coventry. The question then has to be 'did anyone else see it?' If others were out at the same time and nobody else saw it, then it most likely wasn't an aurora, and you'll have to look elsewhere for an explanation.

[Tim]

12 hours ago, carastro said:

The one time I saw aurora in the UK was in 2011 when I was at the Kelling Heath star party in Norfolk.  I was imaging at the time with a DSLR actually doing the M81 M82, so pointing north.  There had been some very large sunspots a few days before (which I had also imaged).  Sadly for the majority this was on the Monday evening when many folk had already gone home.  

3

I know Carole, I was there! To date, that night remains by biggest astronomical regret. My wife had decided, for the first time, to join me, and while you lot at the top of the field were enjoying the aurora in the north, we were exploring the comets and clusters in the south ?

[Tim]

In the cold light of day we are no closer to understanding what happened!

[carastro]

Quote

I know Carole, I was there! To date, that night remains by biggest astronomical regret. My wife had decided, for the first time, to join me, and while you lot at the top of the field were enjoying the aurora in the north, we were exploring the comets and clusters in the south 

Oh yes, I remember that well, didn't realise you were one and the same person.  Yes I recall how cross you were with yourself.

Carole 

[maw lod qan]

Here where I'm at it's 27 degrees. How much further North are you in Coventry?

I've read back in the 1800's after a massive CME the auroras were seen all the way to Panama.

[Tim]

49 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

Here where I'm at it's 27 degrees. How much further North are you in Coventry?

I've read back in the 1800's after a massive CME the auroras were seen all the way to Panama.

52°

I really dont think it can be aurora, but they are both insistent on the red colour and the graduating skies and the blanket of unusual light, which came and went. We had a fairly clear night last night, for the first time in ages, and the light pollution from the city was quite subdued. I was in and out of the observing area all night, just missed this event.  

Might never know what happened

 

[wxsatuser]

I remember the March 1989 aurora, this was an X8 flare.
Here on the south coast there were rolling waves of red cloud like stuff, a comparison would be like fine wispy cirrus cloud.
On hamradio, 144MHz SSB I worked quite a few EU stations well south of here, furthest down into Italy.
Other stations in the UK  did even better, my location not to good for VHF.