Northern & Southern Lights (aurora borealis/australis)

[XPan]

Stockholm Aurora time
13-14 March 2022

The last outbreak in the beginning of march didn't really generate anything over the City of Stockholm - and I don't know why. While inland, people did capture images of Northern Lights...

However last night, Northern lights appeared briefly around 19.00 local Swedish time. Then somewhere around midnight stronger burst appeared covering a lot more of the sky, at time even half of the sky - but very weak (like a greenish haze) which to the naked eye wasn't bright or anything. Some "curtains" remained visible to the naked eye. (Keep in mind with photos like the ones below... they always look brighter and more colorful in photos, compared the naked eye).

It is only when you get really strong auroras, that sight is truly remarkable to the eyes.


First out
a broad panorama stiched together out of 4 vertical images, covering North to East around 00:34. Then they subsided quickly again (00:41), only to appear anew (00:50) and for a very short moment, there were multicolored Auroras visible (01:05, 01:07)










'

 

[XPan]

THE STARFISH PRIME GEOMAGNETIC STORM
(nuclear auroras) • 9 July 1962

Spaceweather.com published an article about the nuclear induced 'auroras' from 9 July 1962.

Spaceweather.com Time Machine

Starfish Prime: The First Accidental Geomagnetic Storm

July 9, 2022: Sixty years ago today, one of the biggest geomagnetic storms of the Space Age struck Earth. It didn’t come from the sun. “We made it ourselves,” recalls Clive Dyer o…

spaceweatherarchive.com

'Nuclear auroras' viewed from Honolulu (left) and a surveillance aircraft (right) on July 9, 1962.

THE STARFISH PRIME GEOMAGNETIC STORM: Sixty years ago, one of the biggest geomagnetic storms of the Space Age struck Earth. It didn't come from the sun.​

"We made it ourselves," recalls Clive Dyer of the University of Surrey Space Centre in Guildford UK. "It was the first anthropogenic space weather event."

On July 9, 1962, the US military detonated a thermonuclear warhead 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean--a test called "Starfish Prime." What happened next surprised everyone. Witnesses from Hawaii to New Zealand reported auroras overhead, magnificent midnight "rainbow stripes" that tropical sky watchers had never seen before. Radios fell silent, then suddenly became noisy as streetlights went dark in Honolulu.

Essentially, Starfish Prime created an artificial solar storm complete with auroras, geomagnetic activity, and blackouts. Much of the chaos that night was caused by the electromagnetic pulse (EMP)--a ferocious burst of radiation that ionized the upper atmosphere. Ionized air over the Pacific pinned down Earth's magnetic field, then let it go again when the ionization subsided. The rebound created a manmade geomagnetic storm for hundreds of miles around the blast zone.​

"The explosion led to the early demise of all the spacecraft in orbit at the time," says Dyer. "These included Ariel-1, the UK's first spacecraft, and Telstar-1, a US communications satellite which had the bad luck to be launched the very next day."

Normally, geomagnetic storms bring down satellites via orbital decay. The upper atmosphere heats up and expands to the point where it can pull satellites down toward Earth. Starfish Prime was different.

"The explosion filled Earth's magnetosphere with energetic electrons, adding them to our planet's natural radiation belts," explains Dyer. These artificial electrons hit satellites hard, degrading their electronics and solar arrays.

Credit: R.E. Fischell, “ANNA-1B Solar Cell Damage Experiment,” Transcript of the Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, April 10, 1963, Washington DC. ​

"Ariel-1 became almost unusable after only 4 days due to power degradation and tape recorder failure," recalls Dyer. "The Telstar satellite lasted until November 1962 when its command decoder failed. It still managed to provide the first transatlantic TV feed, synchronize UK/US time to 1 microsecond and inspired the Tornado's rock classic 'Telstar,' which used recordings of a flushing toilet played backwards."

The flux of energetic electrons trapped in Earth's magnetosphere remained high for years, hammering satellites deep into the 1960s.

Dyer, who is widely known for his studies of extreme space weather, was still in school when the explosion occured. It set the stage for his entire career. "Starfish Prime," he says, "was a defining event."

 

[XPan]

Northern Lights over Stockholm
15 Sep 2022

I was so busy fiddling with a new company's ftp server routines, after they bought up the company where i have my homepage... and I understood absolutely nothing how to access my old homepage, passwords, and all the now different how to do's.

So, while being irritated and busy - there were auroras going on !!

When I had finished up and went out to the balcony... wohoooo - there they were. Not easily visible to the naked eye (at first), but pretty pronounced though the camera. They even developed further, showing some features, while I took photos. I checked a Swedish Aurora Facebook group; they reported widespread Northern lights visible over Southern and middle Sweden already showing up around 22:30 last evening. (KP index only 3)

Here are a few highlights i captured around 01.20







Lightning over the Baltic Sea

Northern Lights are still ongoing at 01:47, albeit too weak to see with the naked eye in a bright city (plus a strong moon shining). One little detail was cool; while i was taking photos, in the periphery of my eyes, I noticed strange flashes. It turned out, that a few lightning strikes went off over the Baltic sea around 150 km east of my location.

 

[MK Scarlett]

After searching a bit, I did not know exactly where to put these beautiful pictures, so Moderators, feel free to move it in a more appropriate thread if you think it's better.

A Rare Glimpse of Comet Leonard’s Last Moments Wins the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Contest

The brilliant Comet Leonard put on a mesmerizing performance late last year when it streaked across the sky on Christmas Day. Expelled from the solar system shortly after, the celestial matter captivated photographers around the world during its brief stint of visibility, including Gerald Rhemann who captured the illuminated body as its gas tail disconnected from its nucleus and was swept away by solar wind. The incredibly rare and brief event also garnered Rhemann the top prize in this year’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest.

© Gerald Rhemann, Tivoli Southern Sky Guest Farm, Khomas, Namibia, December 25, 2021:

The two following also won a price.

“Winged Aurora” © Alexander Stepanenko, Murmansk, Murmansk Oblast, Russia, January 15, 2022:

“The Night Highway” © Filip Hrebenda, Stokksnes Peninsula, Iceland, April 11, 2021:

 

[Olivierlejardinier]

Follow up on inusual auroras and protons event mentionned earlier :

Germany

The auroras in Europe were so bright, they could be seen even from brightly-lit urban areas. Thomas Hunger sends this report from Berlin, Germany: "I run Northern Lights tours in Tromsø, Norway, but would have never dreamt of seeing auroras from my home town of Berlin. I stepped on the balcony and enjoyed a sight that in a city of 4 million inhabitants might just have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

The solar wind density reached a peak of 60 p/cm³ around 03:00 UTC en April 24. This time there is justification for this phenomenon.

From Spaceweather.com

"
MYSTERIOUS "AURORA BLOBS" EXPLAINED:

Europeans are still trying to wrap their minds around what happened after sunset on April 23, 2023. Everyone knew that a CME was coming; photographers were already outside waiting for auroras. But when the auroras appeared, they were very strange.

"I had never seen anything quite like it," says Heiko Ulbricht of Saxony, Germany. "The auroras began to tear themselves apart, pulsating as they formed individual blobs that floated high in the sky."

​

"It literally took my breath away," he says. "My pulse was still racing hours later!" The same blobs were sighted in France and Poland, and in Denmark they were caught flashing like a disco strobe light.

Ordinary auroras don't act like this.

Indeed, "these were not ordinary auroras," confirms space physicist Toshi Nishimura of Boston University. "They are called 'proton auroras,' and they come from Earth's ring current system."

Most people don't realize that Earth has rings. Unlike Saturn's rings, which are vast disks of glittering ice, Earth's rings are invisible to the naked eye. They are made of electricity--a donut-shaped circuit carrying millions of amps around our planet. The ring current skims the orbits of geosynchronous satellites and plays a huge role in determining the severity of geomagnetic storms.​

​

Sometimes during strong geomagnetic storms, protons rain down from the ring system, causing a secondary shower of electrons, which strike the atmosphere and make auroras. Earth-orbiting satellites have actually seen these protons on their way down. Ordinary auroras, on the other hand, are caused by particles from more distant parts of Earth's magnetosphere and have nothing to do with Earth's ring current.

Mystery solved? Not entirely. "We still don't know why proton auroras seem to tear themselves apart in such a dramatic way," says Nishimura. "This is a question for future research."

"It was very exciting to watch," says Ulbricht. "I definitely want to see them again."

Good, because they'll be back. Solar Cycle 25 ramping up to a potentially-strong Solar Maximum next year. Future storms will surely knock more protons loose from the ring current system.

Here's what to look for: (1) Proton auroras tend to appear around sunset. Why? Electric fields in Earth's magnetosphere push the protons toward the dusk not dawn side of our planet. (2) Proton auroras love to pulse--a sign of plasma wave activity in Earth's ring current. (3) Proton auroras are sometimes accompanied by deep red arcs of light (SARs), the glow of heat leaking from the ring current system. These red arcs were also seen on April 23rd.

Solar Max is coming. Let the proton rain begin! "

 

[Chad]

The aurora activity currently occurring over Eurasia is exceptional - STEVE has been spotted in the UK; deep red aurora in Crimea - and i don't think it can really be explained by the relatively normal geomagnetic activity, either. A selection of tweets below - but the activity is currently ongoing, so there may be more to come:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1721234848134693337

https://twitter.com/x/status/1721240486927540261

https://twitter.com/x/status/1721232352192430576

https://twitter.com/x/status/1721217612451844213

https://twitter.com/x/status/1721220678550978867

https://twitter.com/willgater/status/1721239483037655221

 

[Antony]

The aurora activity currently occurring over Eurasia is exceptional - STEVE has been spotted in the UK; deep red aurora in Crimea - and i don't think it can really be explained by the relatively normal geomagnetic activity, either. A selection of tweets below - but the activity is currently ongoing, so there may be more to come:

Chad,

Yep, it is really strange in russian southern regions. Here, near moscow, we did not see it because of clouds/rainy weather.
Basically saw it on the news

The Northern lights were seen in the sky over the Rostov region

Scientists have explained why it is red in the south of Russia
Residents of the South of Russia, including the Rostov region, observed the Northern lights on the evening of November 5. In social networks, eyewitnesses share photos of the sky, painted in bright red.

According to astronomer Alexander Ivanov, the aurora appeared due to a magnetic storm.

"The aurora borealis arises from proton impacts on the magnetosphere. Magnetic storms have arisen recently, since the afternoon of November 5. They continue for three hours in a row. The glow is just connected with this," the expert told Komsomolskaya Pravda.

A couple of fotos:

В небе над Ростовской областью увидели северное сияние

Учёные объяснили, почему на юге России оно красное

www.donnews.ru

 

[AzarHyun]

Also, over the Balkan

Aurora borealis nad Balkanom: Pogledajte spektakl na nebu iznad BiH, Hrvatske, Slovenije

Polarna svjetlost vidljiva je večeras, 5. novembra, iz Hrvatske, Bosne i Hercegovine, Slovenije. Polarna svjelost (sjeverna svjetlost, sjeverna zora ili prema lat. međunarodni termin: aurora borealis) je vrlo lijepa i neobična svjetlosna p...

radiosarajevo.ba

 

[Debra]

Geez, that deep red is very dramatic, and, could we even call it “scary” or possibly “biblically apocalyptic”?
I grew up viewing Northern lights, and very rarely were they anything that foreboding colour.
Greens, pinks, and pale purples are the norm.

Of course it’s a ‘coincidence’ that experiments are being done at the HAARP facility at this time.
They started on November 4, and will continue to November 8, 2023.
From the article:
“The airglow, if visible, will appear as a faint red or possibly green patch. Because of the way the human eye operates, the airglow might be easier to see when looking just to the side.”

HAARP artificial airglow may be widely visible in Alaska
Nov. 2, 2023​

The article states “Alaskans and visitors may be able to see an artificial airglow in the sky created by the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program during a four-day research campaign that starts Saturday.”
But further down, it’s mentioned:
“Each day, the airglow could be visible up to 300 hundred miles from the HAARP facility in Gakona. The site lies about 200 miles northeast of Anchorage and 230 miles southeast of Fairbanks, or about 300 to 350 kilometers.”

HAARP artificial airglow may be widely visible in Alaska

Alaskans and visitors may be able to see an artificial airglow in the sky created by the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program during a four-day research campaign that starts Saturday.

www.uaf.edu

 

[XPan]

Red auroras
in particularly are rarely as bright and that saturated as in (some) photos (whether taken digitally or with film); red always pops out a lot stronger compared to what the naked eyes sees. I mean sure auroras can get very bright in rare cases - but photos always appear to make then look even brighter.

11 Nov 1989 - stockholm
I remember at least two times in my life intense red auroral outbreaks. They appeared dark red, like a ruby or Garnet Gemstone type of red.

On 11 Nov 1989 it was the first time i ever saw Northern lights - and boy what a show !! One i never forget; coming straight down from the zenith, deep dark intense curtains and rays of red aurora - covering middle Sweden. This intensity went on for 4 hours without breaks.

Luckily i was a conductor at a local railway in Stockholm, and we had super clear skies - so i could follow the auroras with my mouth open, totally startled. I mean they were ONLY dark red all the time. No other colors appeared. Unfortunately - that evening i didn’t bring my camera with me (which i used to have with me most of the time)

The other time, was Nov 2001 over Stockholm with intense dark red glow covering large parts of the sky. I have shown this photo before, i believe

 

[Alejo]

Yes,

Some of the pictures from the Auroa over Donbass and Crimea are spectacular, I had never seen anything quite like it, purple and green definitely, that scarlet red, I think it's the first time I have seen it

https://twitter.com/x/status/1721259888691892624

As I was doing a search on Twitter, I caught this Timelapse.. from Australia, Southern Hemisphere.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1721278028767186994

Centra Europe

https://twitter.com/x/status/1721326170405253608

Slovakia

https://twitter.com/x/status/1721261096416288842

Must have been quite the storm, a G3 according to Spaceweather

 

[Olivierlejardinier]

In an article : Aurora colors: What causes them and why do they vary?

"

Red aurora​

Red auroras are comparatively less frequent and are usually associated with intense solar activity.

They occur when solar particles react with oxygen at higher altitudes, generally around 180 to 250 miles (300 to 400 km), according to the CSA.

At this height, oxygen is less concentrated and is excited at a higher frequency or wavelength, making reds visible. Red auroras are often seen at the higher edges of the display."

and I remember reading elsewhere that moonlight can also enhance the phenomenon...
We're heading towards SolarMaximum, forecasted around late 2024-early 2025, thus we should expect more impressive displays in the sky.

 

[naorma]

We had a lot of Auroras in Austria - obviously in many parts. of this small country. It is reported from the southern part mostly. That is definitely unusual. We normally don't see any.




The next one I found in Switzerland. The cloud on the right side looks a little bit creepy. . . .


And this one I found for Ukraine . . .

 

[Andrian]

We had them too over Italy yesterday, from the North till the South, red auroras.

So it seems it was a almost worldwide spread phenomenon which I bet It doesn't happen too often.

 

[bozadi]

Turkey is also in the list. As south as the province of Van.