Live data from Hacker News

Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

foto-webcam.eu

381–390 of 406 posts

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#381

I saw a full aurora in Melbourne, Australia. Colours, ribbons, arcs and beams all visible to the naked eye and on camera. Normally with aurouras, you only get to see a faint greyish glow on the horizon and it only looks good on camera. Not this time.

Aurora australis are dimmer than aurora borealis.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#384
post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a place with fair amount of light pollution, and far from where the aurora would be strongest. These two photos taken with my camera, are approximately how it looked to my eyes after they'd adjusted to the dark: https://i.imgur.com/8OOiCgX.png https://i.imgur.com/GCpyumd.png As a comparison, this is how my phone captured the same scene with default settings: https://i.imgur.com/FCvN3gf.jpeg

Thanks! Certainly two entirely different visuals.

Yeah. Although I'm sure you can get closer to the phone photo in real life if you're somewhere very dark and near the poles.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#385

Earlier 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…

I wonder the same. My wife and I drove out to a park east of Seattle late last night to spend a couple hours watching the aurora, and it was... okay. I saw some faint grey wisps, like high-altitude clouds, which occasionally faded away and reappeared elsewhere. A mild novelty, but nothing I would bother to seek out again; I assumed we were too far south, or out of the path, and hadn't gotten to see it properly. This…

So at 9:55PM in central Kansas, you could see definite pink/red in the north (vertical strips, reminiscent of sunset/sunrise through clouds) and a bright colorless/maybe greenish patch straight up. Also some faint pink to the west. The color was unmistakable in the north though and only required a minute or so of dark adaptation after coming out of the house. It's dark skies here but not extremely dark. Funny thing is the aurora itself made the sky very not-dark.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#386
Sorry all, had the following comment in the wrong thread yesterday:

My unindicted co-conspirator is a much bigger fan of song contests than I am, but sometimes you just have to wonder at the production values: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyUsNgu4GAI&t=550s

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#387

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…

I was out flying a camera drone on the river Dee between Liverpool and North Wales filming the sunset, when I started getting magnetic interference warnings. At the same time, I started to see flashes in the sky. Then my vision was filled with sparkling lights. A few minutes later I got an aurora warning from my brother and the aurora app. KP 8-9 As the sun went down I was waking through a woodland. I thought the dar…

You did the right thing, the correct way is to just enjoy it with your eyes. There are enough photos and timelapses on the net anyway. They can't capture the speed of the real thing since you need pretty long exposure time to get enough light.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#388
Went out into a meadow near town last night. Couldn't see a thing. Light pollution was probably too bad. But it was really funny to see a bunch of people milling about in the meadow at almost midnight. Many of them idiots walking around with phone torches destroying their and everyone else's night vision.

The shocking thing to me, though, is the number of satellites in the sky. This was a shit sky, way beyond what people would call "milky". Hardly any stars visible. But everywhere you looked there were satellites. I remember it being rare to see one only 15 years ago. Almost couldn't believe you could really see them back then. But now... Everywhere. I had no idea how congested it was getting up there. Wish I could leave Earth. But also glad we can't because we'd fuck that up too.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

With the milky way it's the same thing as the auroras. I went camping in the middle of nowhere USA, and on a clear night you can absolutely not see the milkyway the way it's portrayed in photos. It looks waaaaaaaaay less clear. You need a very long exposure camera to see it the same way as on the internet. The only difference with Europe is that I saw more stars, but none of those nebulas.

Not entirely true, I was out hiking in the mountains of Colorado, and that was the best Milky Way view I’ve ever seen. It looked just like the crazy photos with millions of stars. Just laid on a rock staring at it for an hour

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#390
post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have binocular vision. I lived aboard a sailboat for a few years. I'm quite active with rock climbing etc and I honestly don't think I would be able to do anything better if I had binocular vision... Just a thought

Good for you! But I know I am worse doing climbing etc. with one eye. It is probably something you can train and get used to, that it is not such a big deal, but I cannot imagine doing it on the same level one eyed.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN