Melbourne aurora australis 11th March 2011

[starfinder]

Hi All.

I spent some time bayside Melbourne last night (Black Rock) having a nice pizza for dinner in the hope of seeing some aurora australis. Kp index was high and Bz pointing south were promising indicators. Couldn't see anything obvious to the south (even on camera's screen!), but there were some suggestions of flickering movements within the light polluted sky background.

However, I had a very pleasant surprise when I looked at the images on my computer this morning....my camera had recorded some red and violet colours and beams! Canon40D, 14mm lens at f/2.8, ISO800, 30secs.

This my first sighting of the aurora australis from the Melbourne area since 2005. Not spectacular, but a promise of better to come! Roll on solar max! :)

Three images are attached - the last is a time lapse of 4 individual frames showing the aurora, trailled stars and a fishing boat moving to a better? location. The small patch of light mid frame is the small Magellanic Cloud.

More pics are here: http://www.russellsastronomy.com/aurora/11032011.htm

Cheers.

Russ

[MrB]

Nice!
How does one get advanced warning of these events?

[Matt Wastell]

Fascinating! I have never seen such events - to see them in Melbourne is awesome!

[Moon]

Wonderful Russ - everyone is on high alert now!
James

[ballaratdragons]

Well done Russ, you certainly captured Aurora! :thumbsup:

It shows best in the first two images. Gets a bit washed out in the third but its still there :)

For anyone that says its just glow from the cityscape, look to the right hand side and you'll see the faint vertical shafts. Then you'll notice them almost all the way across :thumbsup:



Spaceweather is a good source: http://www.spaceweather.com/
and look at the Southern Hemisphere/Antarctica maps.

and here is the current map showing that Melbourne (and me up here) have a bit of a chance of seeing the edge of the Aurora tonight:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/gif/pmapS.gif

[starfinder]

Many thanks for taking the time to view and post comments.

Clear skies.

Russ



Thanks, Ken. That's exactly the information I use. Furthermore, solar particles arrive at the Earth generally 1-2 days after explosion from the Sun. That's when I start to look more closely at the spaceweather.



Cheers, James. I hope to present more aurora images in future as solar activity rises towards max. :thumbsup:



Hi Matt. I'm pleased you liked them.

[CarlJoseph]

Well done Russ. Great capture. Looking forward to the next few years and this becomes more frequent. :thumbsup:



So, what's Kp and Bz? :shrug:

Cheers,
Af.

[DavidU]

So I take it that it is worth a look tonight (sunday) here in Melb?

[ballaratdragons]

Looks like a chance Davo.
Try find a viewing location with none or little light in the south (you should be OK at your location I think) and just sit and watch for hours :zzz2: :lol:

and keep updated with this link: :thumbsup: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/gif/pmapS.gif

[rwong]

Thanks Russ. Must keep an eye on spaceweather from now on. Would love to see one in Melb.

Clear skies
Reg

[starfinder]

Thanks very much Afro Boy. Me too!!



re Kp and Bz; without wanting to get too technical, they are measures of how the Earth's magnetic field is being disturbed by charged particles ejected by the Sun. Kp of 5 and above is highly disturbed and is indicative of unusually high levels of solar particles passing by. Bz pointing south allows these charged particles to follow Earth's magnetic field lines towards the poles - a condition very conducive to auroras. www.spaceweather.com (http://www.spaceweather.com) has more info.

[MrB]

That link just refuses to happen for me :(

[ballaratdragons]

:( Pity coz it's very helpful to see where the Aurora Australis is visible.

Try going this way:

open this site: http://www.spaceweather.com/

then scroll down and on the left you will see a small 'Current Auroral Oval' map of the North Pole showing where the Aurora is.

Underneath the map you will see links to 'New Zealand' & 'Antarctica'. Click on either one and it will change the image in the small map to South Pole view. Once it has changed, click on the map itself and it should open up the one you can't open in here. :thumbsup:

[starfinder]

G'day Reg. In view of the Sun's activity rising steadily, hopefully it won't be too long before we see a bright and really colourful display. Keep looking at spaceweather.com from time to time and watch the south for glows and moving lights. You might be lucky. :)

Cheers.

Russ

[Octane]

Russ,

That's awesome -- congratulations!

I wonder if I could see this from Canberra. But, even if I wanted to, it's cloudville.

H

[ballaratdragons]

Russ, you have some stunning Aurora pics on your site. Thanks for showing us. :)

I'm looking forward to our Aurora activity rising :thumbsup:

[MrB]

Cheers Ken.
I get the thumbnail on Spaceweather, but "can't find the server at www.sec.noaa.gov" any other way .. grrr.

[ballaratdragons]

That is really weird.

You should be getting this:

[h0ughy]

fantastic Russ - i would love to have the opportunity to get one of these. Congratulations.

I took the liberty of having a process of your stacked image. Russ you need to have a go at reprocessing your Raw data again as you can get a lot more out of the images to show this a bit better and also reduce the noise of both the camera and not enough signal. it is really a ribbon of rainbow light - awesome shots and what an opportunity:thumbsup:

[starfinder]

Thanks h0ughy for taking the time to comment. Much appreciated.



Hopefully your opportunity will not take too long to arrive - thinking about moving south? :)



Cheers Mate. No worries at all - you're very welcome to do that, with my compliments. And you've brought out some detail that was hidden in the sky brightness, too. In fact you raise an important point - how far should we go with our processing? I have to say, I'm constantly torn between realism and art when I'm tweeking images. ;) I deliberately set the black point at a high level (50 or so) to better reflect the sky conditions at the time because the skies above this 4 million populated metropolis aren't, well, to be honest......dark! I could (should?) have gone further, but I just wanted to give the viewer a realistic impression of the scene - even though the aurora wasn't clearly defined to my eyes and the colours, certainly not, the camera showed it was there nevertheless. I'll consider uploading two versions next time to express the range of processing options available. Thanks again for your comments, mate. :thumbsup: Clear skies. Russ

[starfinder]

Thanks Octane. Weather permitting, you're sure to see something from Canberra this solar max. Just pay attention to what the sun is doing and check spaceweather.com from time to time for updates. Keep looking south. Good luck!



Thanks ballaratdragons. Due to the lens's limited field of view, some of the images only give an impression of what the Scottish auroras were like. All-sky lightshows - visually, they were totally awesome!!