Unexpected Aurora in Tasmania

[Graham Sanders]

On the evening of May 28 Julie and I were no longer peering at the universe through our scope, the sky was for eyes only as the glow of the southern lights turned on its magical display!!

[Liz]

OMG!!! Stunning pics Graham. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
The last one is magnificent!!
Wondered if that big flare the other day would spark some aurora.
Do you see many in Tassie normally?

[Stu Ward]

This sounds like im making it up now, but i swear that on Tuesday night whilst i was out trying to do a spot of imaging before the cloud deck rolled in I saw a very brief green veil move downwwards in the sky.
It lasted 2 seconds max and was about twice the width of a full moon.
I thought it was my eyes playing tricks, but maybe....... Just Maybe

[jjjnettie]

Great captures, amazing!!!!
you can subscribe for Aurora alerts in the Northern Hemisphere, I wonder if there is a service for down South?

[gary]

Hi Graham,

Fantastic! I can see why the scope would sit idle.

[Graham Sanders]

Thanks for the comments, you can subscribe to Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue <reynella@mira.net>u to receive alerts for the aurora and other celestial events this one was not expected, lucky us!

This is my first here in tassie however this is the latest alert from Ian: [A massive M 2.5 class solar flare and coronal mass ejection happened at 4 pm yesterday. The CME is only partly Earth directed, so high latitudes (eg Tasmania, Southern New Zealand) have a *possibility* of aurora on late night 8th June or early morning 9th (even possibly evening of the 9th).

Rain last night however we are hoping the sky clears tonight, will post some more pic if skies clear, cheers Graham

[oosh]

Unreal sight Graham, lucky you mate! Looks great.

[mswhin63]

That is absolutely beautiful. It has been soooo long since an aurora came so close. Tasmania would be such a wonderful place to capture them.

BTW: I managed to download an IPhone app called "Aurora Forecast" which is really neat. provide levels 1-5 to quickly notify.

http://www.huskycode.com/aurora/

Like tonight is forecast 5 and the outer visible ring is for Tassie

[space oddity]

Big CME the other day, high chance of an aurora Friday night. Check with spaceweather.com on the net. Will be lucky to get anything in Sydney, so I intend heading down as far south as the family will let me tomorrow night in hope of spotting and photographing an aurora. Mind you, if the CME hit earth straight on, we could have a Carrington event with the potential to destroy electricity lines and transformers, leading to electricity supplies simply stopping for quite a while, which would be truly devastating.:eyepop:

[Lester]

Thanks for the views Graham. I have only seen one Aurora, and it leaves me wanting more, bit like a total eclipse.

All the best.

[AstralTraveller]

ditto :thumbsup:

[DavidU]

This is looking interesting for tonight.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/pmapS.html

[Paddy]

What a great experience and thanks for the photos.

[midnight]

That last image is great as it is such a relatively rare thing for Australia.

Well done and good luck for more!

Darrin...

[FlashDrive]

Nice photos ...Love the Scope Graham... Nice piece of sky you have there to look at. :)