Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora • Hacker News Board

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#101

Post by grafelic » Sat, May 11, 2024, 12:03 AM UTC

I feel I need to report my experience from Denmark, Jutland.

It started with white broad streaks, which most of all looked like fog, but then perhaps after 10 minutes or so, we saw colors of red, purple and green begin to emerge from the these streaks. Most astoundingly it all seemed to emanate from a fluctuating point in the middle of the sky. If you looked closely at this point you could see it fall into itself, morphing and shifting continuously.

We went around the house and we could purple streaks at the top and orange to red patches at the bottom of the sky.

Colors observed: Whitish blue, Green, Purple, Red, and Orange

An absolutely a beautiful experience.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#102

Post by gmuslera » Sat, May 11, 2024, 12:03 AM UTC

Those are close to the places in Europe where they are growing triffids?

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#103

Post by DonaldFisk » Sat, May 11, 2024, 12:04 AM UTC

Scotland, 56 degrees north. I expected to see the aurora near the northern horizon, but it was visible east, west and even south, from 11:00pm (2200hrs UTC) until 12:15am (2315UTC). Easily visible to the naked eye. Took good photos on 1 second exposures, ISO 2500.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#104

Post by codetrotter » Sat, May 11, 2024, 12:05 AM UTC

amatecha wrote: post #59

chgs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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! :)

A couple of years ago in the middle of Norway (not south, not north, in-between) me and a friend saw in the news that there would be aurora borealis, which is not common in that part of Norway.

We were outside at like 2AM in the night that day trying to spot it but could see any hint of it for the life of us.

Finally we used his phone and long exposure to see what it would pick up and on the captured photo we saw shades of green like aurora borealis.

Quite fascinating, it was.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#105

Post by nraynaud » Sat, May 11, 2024, 12:07 AM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #86

What's the lowest latitude it's being seen from in Europe?

I don’t see it from Grenoble

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#106

Post by ShakataGaNai » Sat, May 11, 2024, 12:10 AM UTC

amatecha wrote: post #59

chgs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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! :)

I was in Northern MN a couple years back when there was some decent aurora https://imgur.com/a/nBjdhZ9

What the camera caught was really impressive! Even with just a couple seconds exposure on a phone. But what the human eye saw was.... effectively a portion of the sky that was unusually bright and seemed to have some sort of movement. Like you stared at it and knew something was amiss, but nothing "impressive" to look at.