Starship Asterisk*

Northern Lights over Southern Europe

Explanation: Did you see an aurora over the past two nights? Many people who don't live in Earth's far north did. Reports of aurora came in not only from northern locales in the USA as Alaska, but as far south as Texas and Arizona. A huge auroral oval extended over Europe and Asia, too. Pictured, an impressively red aurora was captured last night near the town of Cáceres in central Spain. Auroras were also reported in parts of southern Spain. The auroras resulted from a strong Coronal Mass Event (CME) that occurred on the Sun a few days ago. Particles from the CME crossed the inner Solar System before colliding with the Earth's magnetosphere. From there, electrons and protons spiraled down the Earth's northern magnetic field lines and collided with oxygen and nitrogen in Earth's atmosphere, causing picturesque auroral glows. Our unusually active Sun may provide future opportunities to see the northern lights in southern skies.

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APOD Robot wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 4:06 am Our unusually active Sun may provide future opportunities to see the northern lights in southern skies.

What about southern lights from northern skies? Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen photos of the aurora australis.

Cousin Ricky wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 1:00 pm

APOD Robot wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 4:06 am Our unusually active Sun may provide future opportunities to see the northern lights in southern skies.

What about southern lights from northern skies? Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen photos of the aurora australis.

Yeah, strange wording. This is about seeing the northern lights in low latitude northern skies. Hardly southern skies!

I've seen quite a few images of southern auroras from New Zealand, and probably other southern locations. It's just that where the southern lights are visible there are hugely fewer people to observe or photograph them (or even land to observe from) than in the north.

That "blue aurora over Alaska" link sure looked like a pure GREEN aurora to me until I maxed out my display brightness to reveal the slight blue tinges toward the upper left!

Managed to see it from the Southern UK and get this 2 hour timelapse:
https://youtu.be/_9M3nIdcJVQ

Unfortunately I'd had a couple beers so couldn't drive up to the moors to find a better vantage point. Glad I set up the camera though.

Knight of Clear Skies wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 4:24 pm Managed to see it from the Southern UK and get this 2 hour timelapse:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/_9M3nIdcJVQ[/youtube]

Unfortunately I'd had a couple beers so couldn't drive up to the moors to find a better vantage point. Glad I set up the camera though.

Nice video! Thanks for sharing it with us.

And thanks for being responsible and choosing not to drive.

I think today's APOD is a very beautiful image. I like the colors and the fact that the light parts are not too bright and the dark parts are not too dark (I think there's a term for that but I can't remember it at the moment). It seems to be perfectly balanced to my non-photographer eyes.

Here is an encompassing video taken by the astrophotographer on the night the APOD-featured image was taken: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/fap/image/23 ... ordero.mp4

- RJN

Knight of Clear Skies wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 4:24 pm Managed to see it from the Southern UK and get this 2 hour timelapse:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/_9M3nIdcJVQ[/youtube]

Unfortunately I'd had a couple beers so couldn't drive up to the moors to find a better vantage point. Glad I set up the camera though.

You made the right decision, and you got a cool video out of it anyway!