Aurora Australis

[Liz]

Wondering .... not that I can afford it ..... but where are some good places to view the Aurora from Australia. I know it can be pot luck, depending on the Sun.

What about the islands off Vic or SA eg Kangaroo Island, even southern Tassie??

Would love to see them one day, but a long way to go to Scandinavia.

Just wondering ....... perhaps we could have as an Astro Aurora Event :)

I know Alex C captured some great images from Flinders.

[lepton3]

Liz,

I have seen the Aurora Australis *once* in my lifetime, in 1989, from country South Australia.

It was a very dark site, and a few days after a massive solar flare / CME. Very faint, not colourful (the concensus in the group was its was white/grey), and it didn't reach very far above the horizon.

SO it is possible to see from mainland Australia, but I think rare, and as you say, pot luck depending on the sun. I expect it is far more common in southern Tasmania.

-Ivan

[Liz]

Thanks for that Ivan. :)

Ok, after a bit more research .... next year is the year, and around the equinox, so southern Tassie here I come....... hopefully. :question:

[fringe_dweller]

good luck with that Liz! yes autumn and spring are best times, due to complicated reasons (http://aurora-exeideas.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/frequency-of-occurrence.html) but they still occur outside of those times as we recently seen .. i followed the last cycle (23)/solar max intently and went aurora chasing quite a bit .. so many ducks have to line up, number one for mainland viewing being huge x class flares having occured, but there are exceptions, but the big rarer x flares usually can produce aurora that go (on and off) for 48 hours, so you get a big window .. the other thing is the downside of graph from solar max is the best (http://www.handpen.com/Bio/solar_fl.jpg), so for a couple of years after max year, plenty of sun activity .. but as you can see from graph solar maxs are getting progressively quieter .. but having said that last solar max cycle 23 produced some of the biggest flares recorded! like the x-17 of oct 2003,

its true that southern tassie and south island NZ are best spots in our part of the world, if they get clear weather, even small shows are impressive .. but i followed the last cycle max as i said, and maybe more than 50% of the time, and this goes for southern Victoria as well, when a really big rarer show was on, those prime spots were clouded out .. and we werent .. also southern western australia is pretty good too, they might have on average even clearer weather than us in the wheatbelt .. even southern nsw did much better than vic with regards to actually getting to see the more famous shows..

they really need to start a southern aurora boat viewing service, closer to antartica? .. like they do for whales and the like, so they can sail out from under clouds?

another thing the best peaks of the best nights, i witnessed, 3/4's of them were close to dawn! soooo thats not going to suit everyone ;)

heres an old thread with some details of displays i got to see last time, the biggest best one i saw was april 12 2001, i was only person in southern hemisphere that saw and reported it! but it was some kind of freak sub-storm no one expected to be that good, its at bottom of this page..

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=3294

[Liz]

Many thanks for all that info Kearn. :thumbsup: Will definitely try for next year, maybe November, and will follow up on more info to help in this quest.

[Barrykgerdes]

There was a magnificent display of Aurora Australia in the early 1950's over Sydney. Most did not know what it was at first because a display like it had not been seen before.

It just about covered the sky from the meridian to the southern horizon with its rolling pink display.

I have not seen an Aurora since even when I lived in Scotland.

Barry

[BPO]

There's always New Zealand. Down here in the south, we see the aurora a few times per year.

[icytailmark]

my dad saw the aurora from sydney back in the 50's. It must of been a hell of a solar storm to come up so far.

[CometGuy]

Hi Liz,

If you really wanted to see Aurora Australis you'd have to move for a period on time to the Southland/Otago region of NZ! They are just not frequent enough to just travel there and expect to see something. At one time I made frequent business trips to Invercargill (problably spent at least a month there over time) and saw one Aurora - although it was a spectacular one! When I lived in Melbourne I saw about a dozen over a period of 3 years, although none as impressive as the one from NZ. A couple did get bright enough though to show clear colour to the naked eye however.

I do know one of the large Auroral displays was seen from Townsville, but I can't remember when (I thought it might have been 1972 but I'm not sure).

I also remember Bruce Tregaskis from the AVS (who sadly passed away a few years ago) re-accounting seeing a massive auroral display in the 1950's that covered the entire sky as seen from country Victoria.

[Stardrifter_WA]

I have some really nice photos of aurora taken from Perth Observatory in the late 80's. There were a number of aurora seen at high latitudes.

A friend in Tasmania used to call me to say that he had aurora well above him, so we would head out, as we are 2 hours behind him. An early warning system, of sorts. Most nights that he rang me, we did indeed see aurora in Perth. It was fantastic! But, they were relatively stationary and not moving like we see closer to the poles.

[Paul Haese]

The displays of the early 1950's were extensive because the cycle of 1954 was the largest one in recorded history. My mother as a teenager recorded Aurora from her mothers home in Currency Creek for a scientist at Adelaide Uni.

In more recent times several ASSA members recorded aurora from the southern suburbs of Adelaide during the last cycle.

The current cycle is very low and I think maybe maximum has been and gone. Reason being that activity has died down from sunspot numbers of 140-180 5 months ago to now being around 40-70 for the last month. Might be wrong but just a hunch at present.

That said, with the solar activity so low, chances of catching aurora while not impossible will be rare from Australia if flaring is non existent. Best of luck with your hunting Liz.

[Ausrock]

So glad to see the 50's Southern Aurora being mentioned as it's something I've always remembered even though I was only a youngster.

[Liz]

Thank you everyone for the replies. :thumbsup:

I will keep on hoping that next year will be good, and that the maximun in this cycle hasnt gone :sadeyes:.

NZ would be great too, but Tassie probabaly easier to get to. I'II still plan to get down there as have never set foot on that wee isle.

Am a born and bred victorian, but never saw one when I lived there, though never looked. Probably lighting up the sky while I slept. :question:

[fringe_dweller]

'tonights (or tomorrow night) the night'? maybe - as sung by rod stewart, X5 flare ;)

[Phil Hart]

southern tassie definitely best chance in australia. as far as weather prospects go, i think march equinox would be a little better than september.

when i get back from the Yukon, i've thought about taking a week long holiday in tassie every second march (perhaps) as the best shot at aurora from home.

Phil

[KenGee]

If you save your pennies http://www.auroraexpeditions.com.au/

[fringe_dweller]

during last solar max Paul Anderson used to get mindblowing shots/shows from Ulverston, Tasmania, usually out the front of his house lol .. I think I remember him saying that far northern tassie was pretty good, because it suffered less often from cloud cover than the south of tassie did, but was still ideally situated . and if the name of the game is seeing southern lights from Aussie soil, framed with southern night sky .. well .. doesnt get much better?

some of his pics

http://skychasers.net/paulanderson.htm

http://stott.customer.netspace.net.au/aurora.htm

[Liz]

Yes, saw that a nice Solar Flare on the way, work work, work, bugger.

Lovely photos, thank you :thumbsup:

Still plan for Tassie mext year, maybe March as have a party in Victoria to attend in mid feb. :D

[shelltree]

Will be in Tassy on Monday, so will miss any chance of Aurora from the recent activity :sadeyes: Let's hope for some more though while we're there! :D

[ballaratdragons]

and Snake Valley Astro Camps align with the good months for Aurora: March and November :thumbsup:

Feel free to come to camp on your way through to tassie :D

[acropolite]

I managed a couple of very average snapshots of the aurora last night, staggered out at 1AM half asleep, it was just visible to the naked eye at times and rapidly changing. I grabbed the 5DII but didn't bother with a tripod as HRH was sleeping.

There is some colour and if you look closely you can see the areas of pink and green. To the naked eye there were only patches of white. I saw an aurora in the 80's that had visible pinks and greens past to the zenith, I'll never forget the sight, the one thing I regret is not staying where I was camped to fully enjoy the spectacle.

The light in the foreground BTW is moonlight!

Had it been a new moon the sight would have been spectacular, here's hoping for more this year. The second shot was taken a few minutes earlier, I've pushed the contrast and saturation to bring out a bit more detail.

[Lester]

That is making the most of the given opportunity Phil. Atleast you got it. I have read that there is another aurora chance Sunday evening our time due to more Solar activity. The early evening sky then will be darker due Moon rising later.

All the best.

[acropolite]

If that eventuates I'll be a bit better prepared. Often the problem is when to look, the last Aurora we saw from here was quite pronounced but really kicked in a couple of hours after we went to sleep. Unfortunately I'm not that good at all nighters.

[Deeno]

Very nice point and shoot effort!:thumbsup:

Pleased to see someone captured it last night as it would be pretty high on the "bucket list" of things to chase down and see!

[Liz]

You never know Shelley, keep a lookout!!:)



love to at some time, be great to catch up with a few people, though I know I will at the Solar eclipse. ;)



I would be very happy to see that Phil!! great images with bful country scape foreground too. :thumbsup:

[GraemeT]

I saw the Aurora only once, and that was when I had no idea of the physics behind it. I was camped at Port Arthur in Tas. with my young kids nearly 30 years ago. We had been fascinated by the seemingly endless procession of satellites, presumably in polar orbits, as we sat around our campfire. Then this spectacular green curtain shot up from the south, weaving and pulsing for what seemed to be an hour. The whole family just sat and enjoyed the spectacle.