Although we are heading towards solar minimum i was hoping sunspot 729 might pop out a x-class flare or two,even a good m-class would be nice but nothing so far,so heres a reminder of what you might see from mainland oz during a flare.first three from oct 2003 x-class,last one from nov2004 m-class.
Last edited by southern 40; 05-08-2005 at 09:22 PM.
That 2nd and 3rd shots are some of the best aura shots i have seen!
I love the cloud effect in the 3rd shot, and the second.. the color is absolutely amazing!!!!
Nice one mate
David, even tho Tassie and south Is NZ are by far in the best position for viewing southern lights displays - a lot of southern mainland oz weather (especially SA ) is a lot kinder to skywatchers/photographers than it is to you guys further south (obviously) for example Barry's excellent first three shots were taken in the first 24 hours/night of an around 48 hour period duration storm!!! night of one of the biggest flares since records began in the mid 70's (ranked 5th overall, i think? X-17!!!!!) Unfortunately tassie and 95% of NZ was totally clouded out on the first and best night - of the two night duration, NZ got the second night - where as we had totally clear weather (i was sick as dead dog on deaths door for two months as result of this particular night spent in very cold/tough/wind chill conditions - but it was worth it eh mate gotta suffer for your art?) funny how you dont feel the cold when your having fun! who says astronomy is for wusses?
How many displays do you reckon you have watched from Tassie David? - we are envious here in the aurora starved mainland were its not super common to see them of course
Kearn
having only just (4 weeks) "officially" got into astronomy and now spending serious time outside, i have been viewing as a member of the public.
First memories, sad but lovely, I was about 11 or 12. My aunty in South Africa, I had written her a poem when i was 5 or so when she came out to visit us. I had written "Aunty Nora, she is pretty as an aurora." Having never seen a live aurora, only read or seen pictures, on the night she died from a car accident, my dad had got the phone call late at night and as he looked out, he saw an awesome aurora. He got me out of bed and showed me.
Must have been mid 80's, mum and dads house backs onto a golf course, so the trees cover from horizon up to say 60 or 70 degrees. ONe night there were waves of red and orange and white rippling above at the zenith.
Mid 80's again, our shack is on the east coast of tasmania, very dark as there is no power, very flat to the horizon as ocean on the east and small hills north west and south. There is a small headland and i was walking back from there late, and there was green waves down to the south, say 60 - 90 degrees wdie and say from 0 to 60 degrees high.
Just recently say 9 months ago, news reports had been saying of increased solar activity. My 5 yr old daugther heard about it and insists that i check every night and if i see one, i must wake he up. I have been checking, none to be seen yet, but I have promised her. Her interest is what prompted me to get going with a scope for her, but that quickly became a 10" dob. Funny how things work!
I will keep looking and as my imaging skill progress, i promise to share any sightings with forum members.
This reminds me of something that happened 2 nights ago to me. Can't remember what time, But I just got outside again & went to look through the telescope, when I noticed everthing around me was a light shade of pink. The sky was pink....Everthing I looked at was pink. It lasted for perhaps 4 seconds, then it just....stopped/disappeared. I've read about this somewhere of it happening to someone else recently.....Not sure if it was here or cloudy nights.
David, that is a very beautiful story of your first aurora, i find skywatching can be filled with strange and interesting co-incidences sometimes personally too, part of the territory when your dealing with the universe maybe.
The solar maximum related activity at either end of the 80's produced some of the best and most frequent displays ever reported, much better than the recent solar max.
That second one sounds like you are describing a corona (the best to see imo) I have only seen one once - and it is up there with on of the wildest things i have seen in skywatching - up there with a total solar eclipse, a 100º tailed great comet, 1000 plus an hour meteor storm, a fireball meteor shower. I was gibbering like madman in disbelief, turns out i was the only person in the southern hemisphere who saw it and ever reported it, I was on my own at the time, in april 2001 at 5 in the morning, looking over a brightly lit adelaide from top of darker adelaide hills, didnt have my own camera back then worst luck - i did ring up abc radio and they mentioned it in there news that morning - they got Steve Cook out of bed, laughed my head off heheh.
I once talked with a very good aurora photographer from tassie and he was telling me that a lot of people in tassie use to/and some still do think aurora's was sunlight reflecting off the antarctic ice - even his science teacher said that to him!!?
There is a number of ways you can improve your chances of seeing an aurora display - by studying internet resources. but that is hard to go into great detail in a few short words.
So I would suggest the simplest way would be to subscribe to Graham Palmer's aurora alert email service (he is very good) at gramy[at]globe dot net dot nz
if he says via email there is a good chance of action - then go and look at these graphs at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/plots/kp.html if the 3 hour increment bars go in the red over 5 or 6 - then it might be worth having a look in tassie (and over 7 for southern mainland Oz) - rarely, but still occasionaly these graphs arent up to date, so always check that the times are correct (universal time) there are many sites and little programs on this subject - but it would take a lot of writing to cover it all.
If you do see some activity reports are very welcome and appreciated at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southern-aurora/ as well as here at IIS
I sometimes get the feeling that people think if you have seen one aurora display you have seen them all - they are as different and varied as sunsets are. And also there is a very BIG difference between a BIG MEGA display and a mediocre/mild one - just for the unitiated - its like the difference between a partial moon eclipse and spectacular total solar eclipse, as a rough guide.
Kearn
PS John I havent seen any reports of activity very recently - but who knows? there are actually cases of aurora been seen and none of the indicators indicated there should of been activity? - still a new science
I'm back! - Bazz inspired me to scan a couple more shots from the same 8 hour session we did. these are from close to dawn - we have a webpage with other shots from same night. http://www.southern-x.org/gallery-aurora03.html
Also another tip David, i find end of oct and all of Nov to be a good time to catch a show - November has never failed to have good show yet, that i can remember! you might have to stay up till dawn to see the best? I personally reckon all the vast majority of best stuff in skywatching happens after midnight - most people go to bed and miss out tho silly buggers
Kearn
thks for the replys guys , and yes Rowena that was a night to remember,Kearn and myself were out there from about 9.30pm to 6.00am in freezing cold and dew everywhere had to wipe the lens with cotton buds every shot.But what a night as soon as we got there it was on, with some beams reaching 70 degrees,with the morning showing up fantastic blue edging on the beams,in the photos .Kearn has the best shot i have seen of this(and the pick of the night) at http://southern-x.org/ cheers bazz great minds think alike Kearn you just beat me to the reply post
Last edited by southern 40; 07-08-2005 at 07:31 PM.
hehe he did too - I had my kendricks and lens hoods of course *beam* also this was Barry's first ever attempt at astro photography!! - impressive beginnings
Kearn
I should say that webpage wont work in firefox (especially if you have pop ups off) - i know you all still have your copies of Internet Explorer there somewhere? The code is old on that page - have to get rid of damn #'s out of code
You guys are sooooo lucky, the closest I have come to seeing an Aurora is on video. Thats what happens when you have city lights between you and the south polar region.
Thanks guys! Yep croweaters - reminds of that old bush ozzie recipe for eating crows/parrots/galahs ect. - bring water in pot to boil - add bird - simmer for an hour - add a large round rock - bring to boil - then throw away bird - and eat the rock hehee those shots were taken from eastern side of adelaide hills around 50 klm from adders, ...as the crow flies hehe. .. go the Crows!!!
kearn
I thought while i was at it - I would debut my drawing I did immediately after seeing the wild display on the morning of 12th april 2001 local time i mentioned before.
I made the scanned pencil drawing as i said immediately on arriving home to preserve the memory. This is the first time I have scanned it ever and shown it to anyone - the second image/giff is an attempt i made to reproduce the view in colour using photoshop but I gave up halfway thru, as i wasnt happy with the way it was going, and i couldnt do justice to the scene, i would need Steven Spielbergs special effects dept. to do that accurately! - i did show this to one person years ago. So its another IIS scoop really . This is just a representation of a millisecond of a very, very fast moving display (the two giant beams didnt move whatesoever tho - looked like a giant had parked his truck on the upslope out of sight on the other side of the hills, and left it there with the headlights on). The 'electric shuddering curtain" depicted was moving and changing colours violently at an incredible blinding speed - almost to fast to keep up with!! - it was like a another dimension was trying to open up in our earths sky!! - it is very hard to exaggerate in describing this show.
some background to this event - i had been out at our dark sites on my own after visiting a friend in the hills prior to that since 11 pm - I had seen some good displays all morning on and off - i was driving home (left dark sites at about 3 something am - and stopped every now and then to watch another display that would crop up - all the way to the gorge) when i was driving thru the gorge after cuddlee creek i was still sticking my head out the window and checking the sky every now and then. Suddenly to my disbelief the entire sky starting going red above me and to the north. I raced up the nearest hill and when i reached the top, despite my headlights on highbeam i could see amazing stuff going on thru the headlights - i finally reached a vantage point coming down from near the top of the hillsface back to adelaide north eastern suburbs (southern ansteys hill) and pulled over (within metres of where i took those recent planet conjunction pics - but looking SSW mostly this time over Adelaide's eastern suburbs and the top of the darker hills in the line of sight - Black hill/sugarloaves) I stood there in absolute amazement freaking out from around close to 5 am till dawn (this one also went well into the dawns light - in fact broad daylight) for about half an hour i think. i was rang stew on my mobile but he wouldnt answer- wonder why?! lol
The central activity in pic would be in line of sight with mount lofty, the absolute entire sky all the way to north and west did still occasionly flash red for a few seconds at a time still during all this, as well. There was all sorts of colours in every direction - very very colourful display. the immediate suburbs lights in the illustration was highbury and athelstone way - foothills suburbs - but i could stuff over adelaide central, and all the way to west proper as well. I estimate there was activity covering over 100º in azimuth and reached at least 60º altitude.
Sorry about all the reading - hard to be concise with this type of story!
Kearn
EDIT: forgot to say - in the pencil drawing, the field of view would cover easy 80- 90 degrees across. Also didnt mention some other weird things from this night - (i didnt start writing and keeping written records of obs till 3.5 years ago unfortunately [except for meteor counts and photography details] - so its all from memory - mostly - except for the drawing) and that was there was a very bright waning moon on this date - which probably explains the lack of people going out for a look at it - or seeing it while observing something else. Also there had been a lot of aurora action in the weeks prior to this show - and a lot of observers were a bit worn out and recovering still at the time perhaps?.
Funny thing is I dont remember the moon much on this night? (the date is spot on tho - it was the result of an X2 catching up and cannibilising a slower M8 flare) - the shows were not fazed at all by it anyway. I do have a memory of looking for stars during the final morning show, and not being able to see any. also fogot another vital descriptive word i used to describe the unusual feature to someone - and that was it was as if the sky had a blow torch held to it - or like boiling water -simmering - or a tightly packed school of fish near the surface thrashing and boiling. to my knowledge - i have never seen a photo/drawing or read of a description the same as that feature - i showed that to a veteran aurora observer and he said he had never seen anything like it.
Last edited by fringe_dweller; 13-08-2005 at 05:17 PM.