Heads Up - Possible Aurora show tonight

[Craney]

The Sun produced an X-class CME a few days ago.     

Due to hit tonight, and shock,horror..... it might be clear'ish in the more Northerly latitudes., well North Yorkshire at least and the Moon is almost out of the way.

Lots of 'possibles' and 'maybes' , but  the Aurora-web  is pretty confident of an impact and a magnetospheric storm.   Quote "maybe Kp=7".

Which translates to   

mmmmm??     Watch the (Northern)  skies. maybe.

Sean.

[Tiny Clanger]

According to both the met.office and clear outside, it might well be cloud free round here in Leicestershire from 6pm until midnight-ish , altho' how those sites deals with the BST/GMT reversion at 2am I have no idea. Moonrise appears to be near the end of the forecast clear spell too .  So thanks for the heads-up Craney , I'll be looking north and engaging my boundless enthusiasm and optimism yet again ...

Heather

[lukebl]

I was reading about this on Spaceweather.com. They suggest that it's likely to hit 'from midday on Oct. 30th to the early hours of Oct. 31st.'

However, I find Spaceweather very annoying as they often don't say whether it's UT, Eastern Time, Central Time or whatever. If only they'd use UT so that everyone in the world knows what they mean.

[Craney]

28 minutes ago, lukebl said:

I was reading about this on Spaceweather.com.

Yes, they can be a bit   US of A-centric.

Some web-sites I have been looking at suggest  peaking between   2100 UTC 30th  til  0300 UTC  31st.   

This graphic was labelled as times in UTC.

 

[Carbon Brush]

You have to remember there are those in the USA who do not realise the rest of the world does not share their time zones.
I don't know if they subscribe to flat earth, or think it reasonable for our midday to be dark by complying with their time zone.

I was once dealing with a USA customer (Arizona) who was having problems with a machine.
We got part way through the fault finding and it was 6pm.
I suggested that if he needed more help, he should call the local agent (Alabama) as he would be on a nearer time zone, and I was going home soon.
This was where he started spitting feathers. What do you mean going home mid morning!!!
Yes the guy knew he had phoned England🥴
 

[Craney]

Oh well !!

Better luck next time.    The big impact  failed to emerge...

A couple of yellow bars, thats all.    

I set up in a local quarry that has a good Northerly aspect.     Windy and cold.   Lovely setting though and lots of stars to behold.

This looking Eastward and the lights of the nearby metropolis...Harrogate.

 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Craney

[FenlandPaul]

Managed to get it on camera (just!) here in Cambridgeshire and I’ve seen several images from north Norfolk too.  

 

[Space Hopper]

My aurora app has been alerting me since 21:00hrs Wednesday (red alert 300+ nT)

and i've been on the lookout for it driving from Liverpool to Sheffield.

Whilst in the dark sky Hope valley i looked north a few times and there was some evidence of activity, but it was very subtle.

I reckon a few 30 second exposures would have teased a bit of it out though.......??

Maybe one day i'll actually see some ! 😀

 

[tooth_dr]

5 hours ago, Space Hopper said:

I reckon a few 30 second exposures would have teased a bit of it out though.......??

Definitely!  This was 20s exposure last night before 10pm.  It looks like it picked up again last night and is still going.

 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

The aurora app was going nuts last night with three red alerts at 9pm, 10pm and while I was sliding under the sheets at 1am. I did go out in the garden at 10ish but despite the great clear sky, no aurora. City light pollution at work doubtedly.

[mcrowle]

I rushed out following the 9pm and 1am alerts, but was clouded out to the North from 9pm.  After 1am it was very clear, and on camera I did get a purplish glow towards the North - but nothing more.  As it was a work night, I didn't hang around too long though.

Of course, I'm about as far South as you can get in England, but I have seen aurora 6 times from here, the last in 2014 .

Regards, Mike.

[900SL]

I'm a UK national working in the ME and live in Helsinki. Sometimes I have no idea where I am but I digress.

 

First time I saw aurora was when i was walking around the frozen shoreline one evening in winter. Crisp clear skies, some light pollution from Helsinki, and I saw these green horse tails overhead and I remember thinking 'is that a Lazer show or something?' before it dawned on me I was seeing the Northern lights.

I was transfixed for 10 minutes, until the effects of being stationary at -15c became apparent. 

Hope to see them this winter. If it's a good forecast I'll risk a trip north

[Tiny Clanger]

Well, I was just getting my feline overlord in at 1am before heading to bed when I got a text from a friend in the city of Leicester (which is to the north of me ) saying there was a red aurora alert and they thought they saw a greenish tint to the sky from their high vantage point. Ragged clouds blasting across the sky gave brief clear patches, but I couldn't discern anything but light pollution from outdoors, so headed upstairs to keep watch out of a north facing bedroom window .

At 1:50 am I was rewarded with a fortuitous low clear patch of sky, which showed an absolutely distinct narrow band of green, pulsing and rippling above the distant rooftops, which continued to be visible until 1:58, when more cloud rolled in.

Wow, my first view of the aurora, not exactly spectacular or scenic , but impressive nonetheless ! 🙂

Heather

[Stu]

Well done Heather, well worth getting up for 👍

[Tiny Clanger]

Something just struck me ... despite being never further than arms length from a DSLR (well, except when in the bathroom ) , and having at least two adequate tripods not actually occupied with telescopes available to deploy, it didn't even cross my mind to try and photograph the aurora , I was too fascinated with just looking.

I think I'm innately safe from the dangers of the astro photo money pit 🙂

Heather