Doesn’t look like that in reality. If I take a photo on my phone here in the UK midlands I get pink and green in all directions with a 3 second exposure.
However with just the naked eye it’s like super high level clouds
Yeah, camera sensors (depending on filtering) are far more sensitive to the dim light of the aurora than our eyes. Still means you can get utterly amazing photography there already! :)
This also appears to be happening in the southern hemisphere as well and growing brighter. My layman understanding is auroras are the result of coronal mass ejections interacting with Earth's atmosphere, but I don't recall these incidents being large enough to be so visible in the northern and southern hemispheres simultaneously.
Wow, I just went outside (South West of France) to plug the car for charging before going to bed.
I noticed unusual, faint light patterns in the night sky, like long spikes coming from the North. It was not the Milky Way, we can see every clear night. Color was mostly gray slightly pink. Wondered what was that ... My first aurora !!!
> It was not the Milky Way, we can see every clear night.
I'm exceedingly jealous. I don't think I've ever lived somewhere that I could see it, no matter how clear the night. Looking at images of "north america at night" vs "europe at night" I can see why.
I live in rural very northern England. It’s incredible, clear with the naked eye. iPhone 14 camera with 3s exposure is out of this world (pun intended, but misleading)
Yeah, it's often easy to make it look much better on camera than what it did in real life. Something to keep in mind if one feel one missed out, heh.
Also, timelapses of long exposures can give a wrong impression of how it moves. But has for a long time been the only way to actually see a video of it.
It's often not that slow and wavy in real life. It's more like watching an orchestra play, where suddenly someone plays a flute in the corner, and then a few moments later a trombone sounds from the other side. It's dramatic and beautiful when it's really on.
But modern video cameras are now good enough to capture this in real time, so hopefully we'll see more realistic videoes.
Most of Europe == Not covered by light polution. (and specific areas)
(it's orange outside and it's sodium vapor related)
edit: kind of whish I was at my parent's place. It's a lot less poluted but no go here; nw europe densly populated, we also have the artificial sunrise here 24/7 by means of greenhouses.
From the ground I cannot see it (I'm a bit north of london latitude wise so it should be better), and we have nicely combination of areas of greenhouses and petrochemical companies burning off here so it might be far worse than central london unfortunately. I'm not too high up but my view north is quite ok ... and unnatural orangeish and void of any pink.
I heard the aurora would be visible in Netherland, so living in Amsterdam I just went outside to check. Nothing. Maybe some very vague lighter bands in some places? Cities have too much light for this sort of thing.
Where do people get their forecasts? I often use this one, but it's not very usable outside Norway. Great if you click into each forecast (click the image) and get more details. Like how it actually covers the sky in that location. So that I can use that to plan (doesn't matter if it's strong if it's in a direction I can't see it) https://site.uit.no/spaceweather/data-and-products/aurora/os...
Some weather services also have a kp index, but I often feel those can't be trusted, and don't tell the whole story. And aurora is quite hit or miss, so need more updated data.
I have an app on my phone (AuroraNotifier) that chimes when there's hope. And then I use these others to plan a bit better. But some more interactive map akin to the uit.no one but where I can place myself around would be nice.
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