Stockholm Sweden at ~4am https://x.com/aimkilian/status/1789188389108933097?s=46&t=Md...
Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
221–230 of 406 posts
Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
#222Can't believe I slept through this.
Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Wait no way? That’s where the pirate eye patch trope comes from? There was a practical reason?
I had assumed it was because, being a pirate, you were more likely to have had one of your eyes poked out during some sort of mêlée.
But that’s much more interesting…
Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
#224I’m in Aberdeen for the weekend. Saw nothing whatsoever.
Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
#225Any Ham Radio operators here can share their experience if and how much it affected radio communications?
I heard CW on 144.2MHz with auroral flutter meaning (if I understand correctly) it propagated through or off the aurora.
So that's cool!
Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
As someone who has never seem them, what I wish most people would do is attempt to edit said photos to 'about what it looked like to my eyes.' You can find some online, but they range from 'just like the picture' to 'random fog', so one is left not knowing what to believe.
It varries significantly depending where you are. Both could be true for different people viewing them from different places.
Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
#227Damn, I missed it
The only day in years that I decide to go to bed earlier than usual, this happens...
Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
#228I 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…
Thank you for sharing that. I wonder at what speed the morphing happen, also a sense of proportion. Very hard to capture that in anything but direct experience.
Not sure here in proper continental Europe, but the usual sightings in the Arctic Circle are typically very short. Like it shows up for a minute or even not so. Then you wait an hour and another sighting for tens of seconds.
Obviously sometimes it lasts for hours, but this is nothing frequent (in given location).
Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
#229Here are some phone pics from my home village in Germany: https://www.nowhereinparticular.xyz/polarlichter.html This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. My brother, who is a hobby astronomer, called me and sent me outside. Initially, I saw only a faint red glow in the northeast of the sky, but after a few minutes, my eyes adapted and I could see how it slowly moved and changed its form over time. I stayed outside fo…
Is your village north, middle or south Germany. Just curious how much I missed:-/
Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In addition to the intensity of the Solar activity, location matters, especially nowadays.
The auroras won't be super vivid near larger cities in Central Europe, with a lot of light around you. It's just not north enough and not dark enough. Up north, rural Lapland or so, it can get very vivid during a winter.
Cameras tend to add their extra though.
A surprising thing to me was how the aurora can sometimes be still and sometimes move so fast. It is a strange experience. One would expect something that covers such a large part of the visible sky-dome to move slowly, but instead it can swipe around quite quickly ("like a fox's tail").