Hey, everyone! Wow. This has been an exciting week all around for me with the highlight obviously being a magnificent display by the aurora australis last night.
Some Background About the Aurora
What is the aurora? For those that don’t know, the aurora is a phenomenon that happens when ejections from the sun make contact with earth’s magnetosphere.
This can happen in the form of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, coronal holes… there are certainly other factors as well, but at it’s essence, auroras are visual displays as a result of the sun’s affect on the earth.
There are a lot of classifications for the intensity of these events. Solar flares for instance get rated as A, B, C, M, X. A is the weakest, X is the strongest. Last night, for instance, was M9.94. That’s pretty amazing! There is so much other data that can be used to monitor solar activity. Much of it is too dense for me to understand, but I’m trying.
Some other info…
Auroras can only be seen at night. Clear skies are ideal (I know I mentioned this before, but I’m re-iterating since this post is pretty much specifically about auroras).
To the naked eye, it is VERY RARE for an aurora to look as bright and colorful as it appears on cameras. This leads people to feeling underwhelmed when they do experience an aurora for the first time… but make no mistake, they can be absolutely stunning even in monochrome. I’ve recently heard that two people can be standing right next to one another, looking at the same aurora, and one person can detect some color while the other can’t. Some peoples eyes are just wired differently and their night vision isn’t as strong. I think seeing color probably has other factors, too, like nearby light pollution, what stage the moon is in, etc.
You may have heard the term aurora borealis – that is the northern hemisphere’s aurora. The southern hemisphere’s aurora is called the aurora australis. The australis is what I witnessed on my birthday last weekend… and last night, too!
Over the years, I’ve read a lot about the aurora. I find it absolutely fascinating. I’ve learned more about it and have found some really great websites with accurate data about solar monitoring – such as aurora-alerts.uk. Were it not for that site, I might not have known to go out and try my luck last night!
The website is really wonderful because not only is there data, but people can live report from their location if they’re currently seeing the aurora or if it’s too cloudy, etc. The site has a map of New Zealand (and Australia, UK, etc.) that has a bunch of green checkmarks based on the location’s people are seeing the aurora. How cool!
One thing you may have heard of are kP levels. When I first was researching auroras, I was always so focused on kP. kP levels actually are not really relavant at all to predicting auroras – so if you’ve been looking at those… don’t. Use the aurora-alerts.uk website, seriously!
Lastly, if you’re interested in taking pictures of the aurora but don’t have a nice camera, you can use your phone! If you can hold it still, there’s a way to change the exposure time to ten seconds. If you have a tripod, the exposure time will re-adjust to 30 seconds. I do have a nice camera, but it’s a zoom lens and isn’t ideal for landscape and astro photography, so all the pictures included here are from my iPhone.
Anyway… let’s chat about last night.
The Initial Beam
A few days back, I had heard reports that there was an M9.94 CME (coronal mass ejection) that was earth-directed and supposedly would hit earth within a number of days. Before dark yesterday, people online were feeling pretty optimistic that was going to be the night.
As it got dark out, I made my way to my aurora viewpoint. Checking my phone, I noticed people had already begun to see the aurora. My step quickened.
I saw two girls huddled by the lakefront, taking a picture to the south. I called out, “are you looking for the aurora?” They responded that they were looking at it! I went over by them and we started chatting. We were all excited as we saw a beam light up to the south.
We yelped and cried out. I pulled out my mini tripod (best purchase for $9 at Kmart haha) and took a few test shots. I was in a hurry to get to my viewpoint, further away from the light pollution of Queenstown, but I stayed and talked with the pair for a bit. It was fun to meet others that were as excited as I was.
Main Objective: GET TO THE BENCH
I hurried away, half-running up an incline to get to my precious bench where I will surely spend many nights moving forward looking for the aurora. Occasionally, I glanced to the sky, trying to see if the beam was still there or if I might see another one.
I made it to the bench, and it seemed activity had waned. Damn! At least I’d seen it.
I checked my app and saw that the numbers were looking incredible. I think at that point it was about -800nT (I don’t even know what nT stands for, but negative numbers are ideal. On a typical night with minimal activity that might only be barely visible on a camera, it usually hovers anywhere from 0 to -100nT. The more negative, the better).
I could see a faint glow far off in the distance, low to the horizon, but the beams weren’t visible to my eyes at that point. They certainly were able to be picked up on my phone’s camera, though!
Maybe fifteen minutes later, I saw a couple more soft beams raising from the horizon.
Auroral Band Rises
Some time had passed. I was listening to music, singing along, eyes intent on the sky. I took the occasional test shot.
I noticed the glow had formed into a sort of band that ran parallel to the horizon. It had started to get brighter and it was rising further up into the sky. It was still quite low, though.
Some more beams popped up now and again, but quite faintly. Now and then, there would be a brighter one. I would gasp and snap pictures.
Then some more beams. It seemed the activity was getting more intense. I checked my phone again and saw the numbers had lowered even more. Since using this app, I’ve never seen this number: -1648 nT. And getting lower!!! I had to take a screenshot of it. The app said there was an extreme geomagnetic substorm in progress. YES!
Beams to the Southwest
Up until this point, the activity was nothing I hadn’t fully seen before. When I was in Sweden with my brother, we saw a pretty phenomenal display of bright auroras dancing above the tree line for hours. The beams in Sweden were undoubtedly beautiful, but they remained pretty consistent in terms of their height in the sky.
So, when I looked to the southwest and saw beams reaching halfway up to the top of the sky, I was gobsmacked. Giant pillars, shining with more intensity than I’d ever witnessed before. I could not believe I was seeing them. Unreal! In the distance, I heard a group of people whooping with glee.
They started to slowly dance to the south. The dancing movement is like a curtain slowly swaying in the wind. The movement is slight and subtle at times, almost imperceptible. Other times, the movement is much more drastic and obvious.
Pulses
At this point, things got a little crazy. Intensity of the display was picking up and I wasn’t quite sure where to look. There were different types of activity happening all over the place. To my right, straight ahead, to the left, beams raising higher up in the sky…
And then something really shocked me.
I have heard the term “pulsing” in reference to auroras before, but I had always thought that was the phrase for when you could see the aurora kind of pulsing through the sky, dancing from left to right, etc. But no.
I was seeing the pulses now, for the first time ever. It looked like an electromagnetic pulse or ripples. The best way I can describe it is that it kind of looked like the way lightning looks as it strikes behind different patches of thick cloud cover. It vibrated through the sky in waves or… well, pulses. INSANE. At this point, I was saying, “oh, my god,” over and over to myself.
Grand Finale
Around the same time that the pulses made their appearance, beams started raising up everywhere. They were climbing even higher in the sky. Some would reach new heights while others would fade away. The beams kind of shrink and grow as they move.
I checked the app again and saw that practically everywhere in New Zealand, people were reportedly seeing the aurora.
After looking today, I found out that people were seeing it up in Canberra and even Western Australia. How incredible is that?!
At this point, I had to actually slump down on the bench and hand-hold my phone. My tripod wasn’t allowing me to angle my phone in a way that captured all of the aurora because it was too high up in the sky. So many beams! some were so bright to the naked eye, too. Incredible!
The grand finale happened to the south-south-east. A massive pillar shot up into the sky, higher than any other had thus far. It seemed to reach almost to the very tip-top of the sky. It shone bright and just continued to rise up higher and higher and higher.
I watched in awe and continued to snap pictures.
And then, it all kind of softened.
Cloud Cover & Final Moments
The aurora shrunk back down and while there were the occasional beams that appeared, activity was slowing. The auroral band still clung low to the horizon, but even the app was saying the activity was waning.
And worse, yet… cloud cover was rolling in.
I stayed for some time, but at 2.30am I called it quits. I’d been out since around 11pm. It had been a long, fantastic evening… but I was cold.
I feel so lucky that I’ve been able to see the aurora like this. I’m really pleased with the pictures I got, but even more with the experience of the beams climbing high in the sky, the pulses, and the grand finale. I am looking forward to seeing the aurora again one night, although who knows when activity will be nearly as intense as it was last night? (Hopefully next weekend haha.)
Miscellaneous
This morning, I decided to reach out to the local news in Queenstown to mention my aurora experience. Funnily enough, a little blurb and picture from my aurora experience got added on their page! They didn’t even tell me they were posting it, I just was looking up aurora news from last night and saw my name on there hahaha.
The aurora was certainly the highlight of the week for me. Mostly, I’ve been working, reading, drawing, and doing some stuff for my newly published book.
Eclipse Me
Speaking of that newly published book… thank you to everyone who has supported me! It has been really cool to see that a number of people have ordered a copy. I hope everyone enjoys reading it. As of this morning, I also sent out for a hardcover copy to be published, too. Hardcovers are always better, in my opinion.
I wanted to share some feedback I’d gotten from when I’d shared my work prior to getting it published.
Art of the Week
I really, really like this one! I am going to try to keep working on this theme – sort of distorted, contortionist-y looking arts.
Reflections
Things are really good. I am very glad I made it to Queenstown. I’m making money, liking my job, eating good food. I get to see beautiful mountains every day and go stargazing on clear nights. The aurora is a very special added bonus, too. I haven’t even been in Queenstown a month and I’ve seen it twice already… and it’s almost the longest day of the year!
I had grand ambitions to go to Arrowtown today but after being out late last night and after a busy weekend last week… I think I just need to chill. After posting this, I might go read outside for a bit. Then go for dinner in the evening. Who knows?
Tomorrow might be more of the same. I think my body is telling me to just relax. While I haven’t been SUPER on the go lately (exploring every night after work, fully booked weekends, etc.), I do need to slow down and just have a night where I’m watching movies and shows.
We’ll see what the next week brings.
Until then, sending you all my love. xx
(P.S. Looking at these pictures again before posting… I just can’t believe I was able to get these photographs! I have been wanting to get photos of the aurora like this for years. It’s so cool that I’m living in a place where I could technically see the aurora any clear night of the year, given there’s strong auroral activity.)
