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Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

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Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#191

Post by deadbabe »

chgs wrote: post #49
amatecha wrote: post #11

Wow! Check out the view from the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland! https://www.jungfrau.ch/en-gb/live/webcams/#webcam-jungfrauj...

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

Ok why is it that some people say northern lights look EXACTLY like these spectacular photos, and others say in real life they are actually barely visible and you need a camera and very dark skies?

Is there some kind of running joke I’m missing? I saw some northern lights in Iceland but they were very dim and underwhelming, I didn’t even know what I was looking at until I photographed them and saw the vivid green streaks in the photo, which definitely weren’t super visible in real life. The tour guide even said they aren’t actually like the photos at all!

Are northern lights bullshit or what? What is possible to see with just a bare naked eye?

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#192

Post by [deleted] »

deadbabe wrote: post #191
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

Ok why is it that some people say northern lights look EXACTLY like these spectacular photos, and others say in real life they are actually barely visible and you need a camera and very dark skies? Is there some kind of running joke I’m missing? I saw some northern lights in Iceland but they were very dim and underwhelming, I didn’t even know what I was looking at until I photographed them and saw the vivid green str…

[deleted]

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#193

Post by Scoundreller »

vundercind wrote: post #186
pyuser583 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current storm is visible in Florida and Southern Texas, per NOAA.

Like, visible visible? I’m a lot farther north than that and if I hadn’t known there was something going on, I’d not have noticed it. It kinda shows up on camera, but naked eye viewing is not even worth a walk to the nearest window. Nothing to see, really.

I’m also guessing light pollution was less of a thing in 1859

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#194

Post by joshvm »

niutech wrote: post #118
grafelic wrote: post #101

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, mo…

Can you share a photo?

Currently pretty good at the South Pole. The pink skies are wild. Green auroras are fairlty common over the winter, but it's unusual for it to be this red.

If you're interested in a real time video, here's one I captured a few weeks ago from our "back yard" (excuse the Instagram link)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6T27pEO7dQ/?igsh=eXJyOGtuY2l...

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#195

Post by nerdenough »

deadbabe wrote: post #191
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

Ok why is it that some people say northern lights look EXACTLY like these spectacular photos, and others say in real life they are actually barely visible and you need a camera and very dark skies? Is there some kind of running joke I’m missing? I saw some northern lights in Iceland but they were very dim and underwhelming, I didn’t even know what I was looking at until I photographed them and saw the vivid green str…

They'll never look exactly like the long exposure, ultra vibrant photos. However, when they are really strong you can see both greens and purples very distinctly with the naked eye.

One experience you can get in person when they're really strong is how fast they can dance around above you as well. I've found the dancing lights to the naked eye are much more astounding than in timelapses or videos, 1) because that's when they're most vibrant in person, and 2) because you can see just how fast and jittery and energetic they are, unlike in a video which is usually captured at much less than 30fps for low light and denoised and frames mashed together to create those soupy smooth videos and timelapses. Nice in their own way, but nowhere near the same experience.

And when they're very low energy they will just look like green grey clouds to the naked eye.

Source: live in the arctic

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#196

Post by Geee »

deadbabe wrote: post #191
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

Ok why is it that some people say northern lights look EXACTLY like these spectacular photos, and others say in real life they are actually barely visible and you need a camera and very dark skies? Is there some kind of running joke I’m missing? I saw some northern lights in Iceland but they were very dim and underwhelming, I didn’t even know what I was looking at until I photographed them and saw the vivid green str…

Yeah, typically northern lights look like faint white clouds with a little bit of green tint to naked eye. The photos are like those time-exposure photos of the milky way, which is not what the eye sees.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#197

Post by marmakoide »

proxyon wrote: post #181
pelagicAustral wrote: post #125

I'm in the southern hemisphere (near Antarctica) and the sight is absolutely insane, almost terrifying... its a bright red aurora. Never seen anything like it.

people live near antartica?

Ushaiha and the Falklands?

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#198

Post by punnerud »

retrac wrote: post #131

If you want the best possible view with the naked eye, give them a chance to adapt to the dark properly. The human eye is about 100,000 more sensitive after an hour in total darkness. A smartphone screen or car headlight is enough to undo it.

Use the old pirate trick and keep an eye patch over one of the eyes, and switch when going outside. They used it to be able to see inside the boat going from bright sunlight.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#199

Post by flak48 »

deadbabe wrote: post #191
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

Ok why is it that some people say northern lights look EXACTLY like these spectacular photos, and others say in real life they are actually barely visible and you need a camera and very dark skies? Is there some kind of running joke I’m missing? I saw some northern lights in Iceland but they were very dim and underwhelming, I didn’t even know what I was looking at until I photographed them and saw the vivid green str…

I’ve seen both.

Last night from London the most I could see with my naked eye was diffuse patches of faint pink and green - sometimes highlighted by marginally brighter white-pink streaks that cut across the patches. The camera however picked them up as dramatic bright pink/green columns of light with rarely any trace of the blackness of the sky.

When I was in Iceland a few years ago though - I distinctly remember being easily able to make out super bright and well define dancing wavy bands of bright green, pink, purple and orange (with high contrast compared to the surrounding dark sky) with my naked eye. The camera again picked up the same thing but with the blackness of the sky covered by a green /pink coloured background - something definitely brighter but less well defined that what I could see with my naked eye (and the camera images were not necessarily superior than what I could see in this case).

TL:DR; I’ve seen both versions of what you describe with my naked eye and it’s definitely not bullshit! When people say they can’t see anything like the pictures - I would have to guess that they either have never been in an area with significant activity or maybe didn’t have dark enough skies without light pollution.

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