In case anyone's interested the flaring from the enormous sunspot I've been imaging has thrown a lot of stuff in our direction , and the storm arrived a short while ago and looks great for views of the aurora pretty much UK wide , weather permitting of course.

Here's hoping you have clear skies.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Woodbutcher said:

In case anyone's interested the flaring from the enormous sunspot I've been imaging has thrown a lot of stuff in our direction , and the storm arrived a short while ago and looks great for views of the aurora pretty much UK wide , weather permitting of course.

Here's hoping you have clear skies.

 

 

 

amazing....

Words fail me , an astronomical event occurs as forecast , under clear skies , and what a show it was too ...

I've caught hints of the aurora in the northern horizon once or twice , but to see it stretching beyond the zenith and to the south of me , naked eye here in Suffolk ..... !

 Apologies to those who missed out , you're going to be fed up to the back teeth of seeing it plastered over every platform imagiable for the next few days ...

Had a few issues photo-wise here , I'm out of practice messing about in the middle of a field in the dark with the camera not tethered to a laptop. In such a rush to get shooting with the display reaching right across the sky from West to East that I clonked the focus ring when panning about , caught the lights though which is what mattered to me ...

Just ploughing through a couple of hundred CR3. files that the EOS 90D chucked out as I forgot to shoot in combo mode , but the inbuilt intervalometer was a godsend.

Will post up an animation/movie of all the better shots when the processing's done , in the meantime the Sun's about to appear so time to get shooting again before the monster spot disappears .

Rule #1 ... remember to switch off AF on the lens ... 

Glad to have caught it though , however badly , the sky was so full that the 10mm lens was nowhere near wide enough ... !

 

 

 

No guarantees but the aurora forecast is looking good again for tonight ... https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

 

On 12/08/2024 at 18:05, Woodbutcher said:

No guarantees but the aurora forecast is looking good again for tonight ... https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

 

Same heads-up applies for tonight folks ... 

G4 magnetic storm predicted for tomorrow night , 10th-11th October 2024 .

With largely clear skies forecast across the UK there's a chance of another auroral display to match May's show.

Thanks for the 'heads up' 😀, we are on the bottom edge but will have a look, we have seen them already this year, amazing shot 👍

Just had a red alert for tonight. It'll probably cloud over later, you watch 🤔

Is there a particular time that is best to look and is it true that although it might not be visible to the human eye if you use camera on your phone it might pick it up? 

Or is this media rubbish??

Thanks Mick

Just got red alert here but it’s quite cloudy hopefully it clears 

4 minutes ago, Greedy said:

Is there a particular time that is best to look and is it true that although it might not be visible to the human eye if you use camera on your phone it might pick it up? 

Or is this media rubbish??

Thanks Mick

Yes camera will pick it up better than eyes

13 minutes ago, Greedy said:

Is there a particular time that is best to look and is it true that although it might not be visible to the human eye if you use camera on your phone it might pick it up? 

Or is this media rubbish??

Thanks Mick

Anytime after about 8pm when it gets very dark, although you could have a long and cold wait. Depends on location, any clouds knocking about, artificial lights from towns, street lights etc. And yes, in most cases cameras will pick it up but with the right conditions, we may get lucky.

Got a small viewing in a field out in Dunham Massey around 8pm before they cam back around 10pm in the back garden and outside our house in a street filled with led lights and near the m60 motorway, amazing with the naked eye

 

Didn’t manage to get a decent shot of northern lights but was pleased with this sunset.

 

 

I missed too much of the last one faffing about so I left the camera indoors this time round , wrapped up snugly and sat outside most of the night just soaking up the visual spectacle as it danced around and ebbed and flowed over the entire northern hemisphere ... 

Very strong solar storm (G4 !) predicted to arrive tomorrow.

Sadly it looks like being a daytime arrival for those of us in the UK and Europe but it might well last until it's dark here.

Fingers crossed for all my friends in more favourable locations , here's hoping you get a great show and that we might catch the tail end of any display.

The video shows the cause of all the fuss.

Only one word... WOW.

Hopefully this won't bore anyone reading this, my Dad was born 1918 and having been conscripted in the 2nd world war as a Military Police Man he landed in Normandy on June 7th, D DAY plus one.

He spent the next 4 years in Europe and because of what he saw and did he said so very little. If it wasn't for my Mother I wouldn't have known that he was one of the people who liberated Belson Bergen.

But of the the few things he told me, lol like guarding a distillery of Calvados in France..

I always remember him describing seeing coloured lights in the sky (don't know where in Europe he was at the time) But he and his friends were dumbstruck as they had no idea what they were seeing, they even thought they were something Hitler had invented.!!!!

Although now with Internet etc we all know about the northern lights...

Edited May 31May 31 by Greedy Mick
Spelling

Now upgraded ... !

Well it appears to me that thanks to its intense but narrow front and its speeds exceeding 1000km/hr this eagerly awaited CME has washed over us largely unnoticed thanks to its timing.

Better luck next time ...

38 minutes ago, Woodbutcher said:

Well it appears to me that thanks to its intense but narrow front and its speeds exceeding 1000km/hr this eagerly awaited CME has washed over us largely unnoticed thanks to its timing.

Better luck next time ...

Is this happening more now than in the past or is it just technology and data makes us more aware of it ?

Just now, Dylan said:

Is this happening more now than in the past or is it just technology and data makes us more aware of it ?

No more no less , it's over a year now since we saw the great show that was visible to the eye at low latitude in the UK , that was my first sight of the aurora here or anywhere in sixty-odd years.

The data side has improved exponentially over the years , but at the end of the day it depends on what occurs on the enormous fusion reactor 93 million miles away , if the outburst is strong enough , of the right type , is facing in the right direction , at the right time , reacts favourably with Earth's magnetic field , at the right time of day and when we have clear skies then we see the aurora , if just one of these parameters is off then we don't ...

Just been reading a bit about the 11 year cycle we seem to be in now as well. Hopefully another opportunity won’t be too far away…

2 minutes ago, Dylan said:

Just been reading a bit about the 11 year cycle we seem to be in now as well. Hopefully another opportunity won’t be too far away…

Be careful what you wish for though , an event matching "The Carrington Event" in 1859 could easily severely damage power networks on Earth and easily render satellites inoperable thus sending us back to the joyous pre-internet days of simple living ...

Just now, Woodbutcher said:

Be careful what you wish for though , an event matching "The Carrington Event" in 1859 could easily severely damage power networks on Earth and easily render satellites inoperable thus sending us back to the joyous pre-internet days of simple living ...

paper lists and sales tapes ? No phones in venues.

Sounds good to me.

3 minutes ago, Dylan said:

paper lists and sales tapes ? No phones in venues.

Sounds good to me.

I'm with you there sir ... although the thought of trying to photograph the Sun going back to using an SLR and film again and all the ball-ache that that would involve without a laptop doesn't fill me with joy ...