I'm bored, let's see your Aurora Borealis pics.

taricha

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(not actually bored.) This is a community with a lot of photography talent. Curious how many reefers said good night to the tank and aimed the camera at the skies during the once in a generation solar storm 5/10-12. Post what you got and where you saw it from!
I've always lived in the deep south and have had a lifelong dream of seeing an aurora. So I've had in the back of my mind a far-fetched plan for one day when there's a forecast solar storm with a good enough likelihood, I'll drive 5-6hr north, spend a couple of hours shooting pics, and drive back home and just be miserable at work the next day.
On Thu I found out there was a massive sunspot many times the size of the usual ones, so large that if you had leftover eclipse glasses - you could put them on and simply see the spot on the sun without any magnification. That afternoon, I got home and got this shot with a solar filter and big telephoto lens.
Sunspot3crop_5-9-24_6pm.jpg

You can see the spots in the upper middle are normal sunspot sized, and the bottom is the monster sunspot complex they call AR3664. It's apparently 16x the size of the earth.

By Thu night I ran across the info that previously, that sunspot had sent out 4 x-class solar flares within 24 hr, and although none of them on their own were enough to get excited about, NOAA's spaceweather prediction was estimating that the 4 flares would combine to affect earth in the biggest geomagnetic storm since 2005 - overnight Friday/Sat morning.
So I started telling my wife this might be the one - everything was looking best possible case - skies would be clear, no moon. The predictions got more confident on Fri - the storm started arriving early, auroras were being seen at nightfall in western europe, and the family was persuaded to pack up and get in the car at kid bedtime on Friday night. We'd drive from North MS headed north up to ~4 hr looking for aurora. Hoping that this gave us a shot to see far enough north to catch some aurora high in the atmosphere over the North central US somewhere on the distant horizon.
We didn't even get 2 minutes from the house - as soon as we were on the main highway, we were seeing curtains of red and green in the sky over town. And not low in the sky far to our north - high overhead - like right on top of us.
Here's a handful of my favorite shots. Would love to see yours.

20240510_215019.jpg

20240510_215104.jpg

20240510_215351.jpg



These were all looking East between 9-10pm Fri 5/10/24. I love the mix of colors and structures you can see in those shots.

The thing that is so unbelievable and feels so once-in-a-lifetime about this is how far South the aurora was at this point.
This is what looked like a radiant point where most of the movement and streaks seemed to be coming toward us from. It was overhead TO THE SOUTH - from our point of view in North Mississippi. This means the charged particles were entering the atmosphere in our area hundreds and hundreds of miles further south than even the most optimistic predictions.
20240510_214932.jpg


After 10pm or so, the most insane activity was gone and there wasn't too much to see.

But even as late as 2-2:30am (back at our house - kids in bed) there was still visible red vertical streaks above some lower green if you looked far to the north.
20240511_022704.jpg


Anyway, that was totally nuts. I'd love to see any aurora pics from where you were.
 

Jay Hemdal

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I've never seen such strong aurora. At first, I thought I was seeing high cirrus clouds, still being lit by the setting sun. My cell phone really enhanced the photos for me.

1715597775105.png
 

Dan_P

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Oh, and here's what chemical species are getting hit with the charged particles corresponding to the different colors....
22394.jpeg
Like viewing an ICP-OES test :)
 

ScottD

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So I have to admit, completely spaced out and blew it. I’m still kicking myself about it. I was talking about it with someone at work Friday and then went to bed that night, completely forgetting about it and we had crystal clear skies in the northeast for it. I’ll post a picture that I took a few years ago that happened to get off the Aurora Australis while traveling in the South Island of New Zealand. We were out taking some star pictures and caught some aurora activity. That’s Queenstown in the right side. One of these days I want to stay in the glass huts in Finland to watch it.
20151013-SRD6014-Edit.jpeg
 
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taricha

taricha

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taricha

taricha

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I’ll post a picture that I took a few years ago that happened to get off the Aurora Australis while traveling in the South Island of New Zealand.
Sorry this snuck by you. But thanks for the phenomenal pic. Was hoping that somebody might have a pic of the southern version.
 

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Here’s a shot of the sun spot a couple days prior to the “big show”. I was pretty excited and ready after having just shot the eclipse at my Indiana home a month prior. Felt like photo opportunities were falling right in my lap.

Fast forward to the night of the Aurora…nothing but clouds all around me.

No biggee I thought, the next night is rumored to be even better AND clear skies in the forecast!

24 hours later I set up next to a pond to capture double the majestic colors that I’ve seen all over Facebook, and waited…and waited. Nothing.

The second pic is the best shot I got of the night.
546A2290.jpeg
IMG_3983.jpeg
 
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taricha

taricha

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Here’s a shot of the sun spot a couple days prior to the “big show”.
Great shot of that massive sunspot.

No biggee I thought, the next night is rumored to be even better AND clear skies in the forecast!
Yeah, for a few hours NOAA's actual forecast was that the next night would be at least as big. Instead, that wave of CME seems to have mostly missed earth.
Space weather is far harder to predict than our normal storms.
 

cameronh

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(not actually bored.) This is a community with a lot of photography talent. Curious how many reefers said good night to the tank and aimed the camera at the skies during the once in a generation solar storm 5/10-12. Post what you got and where you saw it from!
I've always lived in the deep south and have had a lifelong dream of seeing an aurora. So I've had in the back of my mind a far-fetched plan for one day when there's a forecast solar storm with a good enough likelihood, I'll drive 5-6hr north, spend a couple of hours shooting pics, and drive back home and just be miserable at work the next day.
On Thu I found out there was a massive sunspot many times the size of the usual ones, so large that if you had leftover eclipse glasses - you could put them on and simply see the spot on the sun without any magnification. That afternoon, I got home and got this shot with a solar filter and big telephoto lens.
Sunspot3crop_5-9-24_6pm.jpg

You can see the spots in the upper middle are normal sunspot sized, and the bottom is the monster sunspot complex they call AR3664. It's apparently 16x the size of the earth.

By Thu night I ran across the info that previously, that sunspot had sent out 4 x-class solar flares within 24 hr, and although none of them on their own were enough to get excited about, NOAA's spaceweather prediction was estimating that the 4 flares would combine to affect earth in the biggest geomagnetic storm since 2005 - overnight Friday/Sat morning.
So I started telling my wife this might be the one - everything was looking best possible case - skies would be clear, no moon. The predictions got more confident on Fri - the storm started arriving early, auroras were being seen at nightfall in western europe, and the family was persuaded to pack up and get in the car at kid bedtime on Friday night. We'd drive from North MS headed north up to ~4 hr looking for aurora. Hoping that this gave us a shot to see far enough north to catch some aurora high in the atmosphere over the North central US somewhere on the distant horizon.
We didn't even get 2 minutes from the house - as soon as we were on the main highway, we were seeing curtains of red and green in the sky over town. And not low in the sky far to our north - high overhead - like right on top of us.
Here's a handful of my favorite shots. Would love to see yours.

20240510_215019.jpg

20240510_215104.jpg

20240510_215351.jpg



These were all looking East between 9-10pm Fri 5/10/24. I love the mix of colors and structures you can see in those shots.

The thing that is so unbelievable and feels so once-in-a-lifetime about this is how far South the aurora was at this point.
This is what looked like a radiant point where most of the movement and streaks seemed to be coming toward us from. It was overhead TO THE SOUTH - from our point of view in North Mississippi. This means the charged particles were entering the atmosphere in our area hundreds and hundreds of miles further south than even the most optimistic predictions.
20240510_214932.jpg


After 10pm or so, the most insane activity was gone and there wasn't too much to see.

But even as late as 2-2:30am (back at our house - kids in bed) there was still visible red vertical streaks above some lower green if you looked far to the north.
20240511_022704.jpg


Anyway, that was totally nuts. I'd love to see any aurora pics from where you were.
Nothing wrong with being bored! Lol.
I was really bored the night I started that thread so instead of hunting down different threads I just brought them all to me hahaha.
Those are awesome photos! I never got to see the lights but got a little eclipse action through my friends setup.
 

Chikpeas

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old thread… but I’m new here so… new to me?

11E93C99-3ED2-431F-86A8-00BD3CA9044A.jpeg


My phone takes some of The worst pictures known to mankind but…. This is what we saw. And yes sometimes it was really that bright out ❤️ I love northern usa

B937A828-C888-4CD9-A3CE-87F8445F8C48.jpeg
408CADC8-D017-4F35-8226-BAE66C6A6249.jpeg
AC2DF5BD-EAAD-4536-852D-15655A6111D4.jpeg
 

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taricha

taricha

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Bumping this.
Auroras returned last night - naked eye visible red and green here in north MS again.
Here's one of my attempts with a Nikon DSLR.
6D673583-C616-4215-898C-39ADBA82456F.jpeg

(Edit: hmm, that nikon pic really doesn't view well on the phone)


And here's just a smartphone capture.
20241010_220858.jpg


would love to see if other reefers caught this again.
 
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tobster

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From TN
 

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Fish_Fry

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I took this last night near Boulder CO.

I love the way the actinics auroa makes the coral sky pop.
1000018062-01.jpeg



Earlier in the year, I spent 10 days in Iceland on landscape photography tour trying to capture the aurora. The weather & aurora did not cooperate, there was only one night with minor activity. Can't imagine what it was like there last night.
 

ScottD

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From CT Thursday night and one from the morning Friday. It was so bright here you could see it with your eye quite well. You could also look straight up and see it above and more than 180 degrees side to side.
 

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