Is there an aurora?

[Carbon Brush]

After the spectacular showing last Friday/Sat this has been something of a conversation point with non astro people. The internet has been alive with images.

I found though a few people thought after looking there was nothing to see. Really?
Our eyes resolve colour only at high light level - daylight. At night we see monochrome.
If you have only seen the coloured aurora pictures in books - that is what you expect to see in the sky.

For example after waking early Sat AM I momentarily thought 'no aurora visible'.
The appearance was of high level thin cloud masking the stars.
After a few seconds my astro head started to work. Why is the sky so bright all over with a (long set) moon and the sun still hours below the horizon.
Aha - it is the aurora!

For anyone without experience of the night sky, what can we do to help?

The advice is Just grab any camera (standalone or phone or tablet) Point it hand held to the northern sky and leave the shutter open for a few seconds.
If the picture shows a weird colour sky, there is an aurora.
At that point you know whether to reach for your tripod and start taking serious pictures.

Anyone else have other simple ideas for the next one?

 

 

[lunator]

I had a very similar experience. 

I had been observing the Moon ea4lier in the evening and then a few doubles. I wanted to see hoe the ST80 would do on some Galaxies in bortle 3 skies but could not see anything at all. It was at this point I started looking around and could see the sky was murky. I went in to get my wife as I had my suspicion it was the aurora and when we came back out it was obvious. You could see the vertical 'curtain effect' very clearly.

It was at that point I grabbed my DSLR and went snap-happy.

Cheers

Ian

[Nik271]

In Oxford it was mostly monochrome to my eyes with a hint of red and purple in the west at times.

We need a very very strong geomagnetic storm so that those of us who live in the  south can enjoy the brilliant colours normally seen beyond the arctic circle.

 

[bosun21]

1 hour ago, Nik271 said:

In Oxford it was mostly monochrome to my eyes with a hint of red and purple in the west at times.

We need a very very strong geomagnetic storm so that those of us who live in the  south can enjoy the brilliant colours normally seen beyond the arctic circle.

 

This was my experience from Oxford as well. On Friday night it was bright though, but as you say mostly monochrome apart from subtle hints of colour.

[Budgie1]

4 hours ago, Carbon Brush said:

The advice is Just grab any camera (standalone or phone or tablet) Point it hand held to the northern sky and leave the shutter open for a few seconds.

This is exactly what I did, went outside and looked North but saw nothing other than a few clouds and stars. It wasn't until I turned around to go back into the house that I saw the purple aurora in an East to Southeasterly direction, above the roofline. A direction I've not seen it from before, either living here in Fort William or when I lived in the Western Isles. 

So don't take it from granted that it'll always be towards the North!   

[Elp]

If you'd like a record of it, always take a camera with you, otherwise just enjoy the viewing experience. I found nothing much was happening but images/video on my camera was turning out green facing north when normally it's blue. To help my eyes as I'm surrounded by lights I just sat in a chair and looked directly up as it's the darkest part of the sky you'll see, eventually I saw what seemed like clouds at first but they couldn't have been as they were very smooth in outline like watercolour strokes and they formed a tulip like shape which clouds don't do, further staring started to resolve red/pink tones but at that point it was already quite strong and I could look at LED lights and back again and still see the colour. Didn't see any other colours though, a 1s snap with a camera or live video however showed it in all its glory, but I guess only because it was so strong. 2 odd hours later it was still happening after the peak of around 11/1130 but it was faint and broad colour patches rather than defined streaks, nowhere near what could be visually seen during the peak.

[ONIKKINEN]

I see very faint aurora a few times a year from my SQM 21 ish imaging spot, and to an untrained eye it would probably be not at all obvious. Its easy to confirm with a phone camera, if there is what looks like green cloud then it was aurora. Naked eye colour in aurora is more rare, but even then i dont think the average observer would immediately notice.

Within city lights i think all of those will be mistaken for clouds or not seen at all.

[Davesellars]

Here in Belper, visually the colour was obvious which actually surprised me.  I've never seen aurora before so wasn't sure what to expect naked eye.  Green was much more subtle, but the red/purple/pink shades really stood out although I noted it was mainly monochrome the closer to the zenith it was was (although more defined).

[Steve Ward]

1 hour ago, Nik271 said:

In Oxford it was mostly monochrome to my eyes with a hint of red and purple in the west at times.

We need a very very strong geomagnetic storm so that those of us who live in the  south can enjoy the brilliant colours normally seen beyond the arctic circle.

 

Here in the darkness of West Suffolk the colours were easily visible to the naked eye ... 😉

[Steve Ward]

I had an "interesting" conversation the following night with two neighbours who had ignored my heads-up on Friday and missed the show.

They were stood pointing their phones skywards filming thin cloud streaks lit from underneath by various lightsources , streetlights etc.

Nothing I said would convince them that it was not a repeat of Friday's spectacle so I had to leave them to it and walk away politely shaking my head ... 

[City9Town0]

36 minutes ago, Steve Ward said:

Here in the darkness of West Suffolk the colours were easily visible to the naked eye ... 😉

...and in Melton, East Suffolk.

[Earl]

The first time I saw the aurora was in Vik Iceland on our wedding night going back to the cottage we were staying in, all it looked like was a grey moving cloud, which is what Sam who had looked into it more than i did was expecting, grab our phones and there was the green on the screen.

last weekend the screen was pinks on the whole for us.

Edited May 13 by Earl

[PeterStudz]

I’m in Southampton which is Bortle 7, my views to the north are rather poor. However, when there’s been previous aurora alerts I’ve have gone outside, pointed my phone north, taken a 10 sec snap, occasionally 30 sec on a tripod. But nothing, which really has been no surprise. I had assumed that this occasion would be similar, but I was wrong. I also have a shed load of white light solar images from last week plus far too many aurora snaps to go through - file or delete.

The best display was between 23:00 and 23:50 - 10th May and caught me off guard. These images, all simple handheld 3 second exposures, sum it up. By eye I could see some colour, mainly reds. And also subtle but obvious beams or fingers of light. For the first image I could certainly see some red. What surprised me was that by just pointing the phone at that area of sky (no pressing the shutter) showed the vivid colours and beams live on screen. 

I did not need to always look north. Occasionally I could see fingers of light going right overhead from the south-ish, heading north. To the east and west too. 

On one occasion I well remember visually seeing a fuzz of light (like a big cloud) directly overhead. Then, it suddenly went to fingers of light, like on opening fist - that’s the fourth image. 

There were people out in adjacent gardens going “ohhhh and ahhhh” which was nice. My daughter was out with me which was also nice! 

I stayed up all night and also had the Dob out. There were off/on displays throughout and I could occasionally see faint beams of light when looking up from the eyepiece. I didn’t notice anything unusual through the eyepiece. Even when I was packing-up at about 3:50am the aurora was still there (last image). Obviously the sky wasn’t really dark at that point and visually all I could see was some vague brightness. But taking a 3 sec snap on the phone would reveal the light.

Two general observation - I can image how much better this would have been from a dark site. Modern mobile phone cameras (everyone has one) are a game changer for these kind of events. 

For the next one (will there be another one) I’d like to be somewhere darker and more scenic. But will probably end up staying at home and in the garden. I did rather enjoy it from home and that’s the important thing!

 

Edited May 13 by PeterStudz

[Spaced Out]

Here in Northumberland we're lucky enough to live under dark skies (sqm-l 21.4). We saw naked eye pinks and greens, the best I've ever seen in the UK. Here's a 'real time' video I took, a local Sedge Warbler was nice company to have for such an event !

 

 

 

[scotty1]

13 minutes ago, Spaced Out said:

Here in Northumberland we're lucky enough to live under dark skies (sqm-l 21.4). We saw naked eye pinks and greens, the best I've ever seen in the UK. Here's a 'real time' video I took, a local Sedge Warbler was nice company to have for such an event !

 

 

 

Sony A7? 

[Spaced Out]

1 minute ago, scotty1 said:

Sony A7? 

Canon R6 mk2. 

[scotty1]

Just now, Spaced Out said:

Canon R6 mk2. 

Amazing video 

What ISO and FPS ?

[Spaced Out]

1 minute ago, scotty1 said:

Amazing video 

What ISO and FPS ?

I used shutter speed 1/25, aperture f.2 (should have been 1.4 for video but I was so excited I forgot to change it !), ISO 51200 😲.

[Kon]

I live in a fairly dark site and I could see the pinkish/red and some of the greens (some of them appeared more washed out green to grey). The sky had a reddish hue to it throughout the night and especially at the peak. The colours were verified by my wife who is always more critical on my excitement. I do not know if it helped that we were both dark adapted (I was out with my telescope and she was awaken by me to see the aurora). I have seen vivd green coloured auroras on a dark site in Iceland too.

[JOC]

I'm under Bortle 4  skies here which I understand aren't the best, I reckon roving 'white' bits are what we would see.  I wonder how many people book those aurora trips on the promise of photos of all those spectacular colours only to be disappointed by the actuality.  It's kind of like the deflation you seem to get when many new deep sky observers are hit by the realisation that they aren't going to see all the colours in the pictures, and that the Orion nebula is just a grey wisp in the sky to the naked eye.