- My astronomy blog

If it happens – what tonight / tomorrow morning’s aurora will look like.

(Posted 9 January 2014) With the CME (coronal mass ejection) expected to arrive around 6 pm AEST tonight +/-7 hours, I have been looking around for a decent photograph of the Aurora Australis.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC7QroiDVQw

I came across something even better and that is the above time lapse video of two seperate aurora taken from the Mornington Peninsula (near Melbourne, Victoria) in 2012. Enjoy.

About Josie Floyd

Read All Posts By Josie Floyd

96 thoughts on “If it happens – what tonight / tomorrow morning’s aurora will look like.

  1. Hi I’m down on the Torquay foreshore hoping fo a glimpse with my daughter waiting patiently with a clear view of the horizon. Although I font knoe how long she can hold out for lol

  2. Hopefully you aren’t being eaten by mosquitoes!

    If she is still awake, point out the ‘Summer Saucepan’ (part of the constellation Orion The Hunter) and then look below it for the brightest star you can see. That is really the planet Jupiter – only a couple of days past opposition.

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  3. Catherine,

    I suspect not. That said, I am not an expert on aurora – having only seen one from Canberra.

    I did read they have been seen from locations near the equator in the past. That however was apparently the result of a massive solar flare – much bigger than the one that occurred yesterday.

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  4. Thanks paul. I will see it one day then. Hope those of you who are blessed with a better location enjoy the show 🙂

  5. Catherine,

    Not a problem. They are visible from Tasmania on average a few times per year. The problem is of course knowing when.

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  6. Hi Paul, would there be any chance of seeing it in Ballarat Victoria? I’m out watching the sky now and just wondering if I’ll end up seeing it or not? Thankyou.
    Thomas 🙂

  7. Thomas,

    There is a chance that you can see an aurora from Ballarat. However, it depends on how big the CME is when it arrives as to how bright the resulting aurora would be. The one I saw from Canberra was faint and only lasted five – ten minutes. So if I hadn’t been looking at the right time I wouldn’t have seen it.

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  8. Sadly I won’t be able to help. At this stage, I have total cloud cover in Canberra.

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  9. Nino,

    The forecast is currently as good for tomorrow night as it was for tonight. That gives you an indication of how big they think the incoming CME is. Hopefully we will wake up tomorrow morning and someone in perhaps Perth or South America will have seen the aurora. What they see will give us an idea of what we then might see tomorrow night.

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  10. Damien,

    Not that I know of. There is a US organisation that monitors the size of the solar flares and uses a number of computer models to estimate where the CME’s from those flares might end up in the solar system. Too tired to remember its name. There are a couple of satellites that study the Sun and two (?) of these are between us and the Sun. I think there are a number of sensors on these satellites that monitor the passing of CME’s either deliberately or accidentally (because of the effect the CME has on them).

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  11. So then 2am is the cut off and we can all go to bed???

    Also I need to work nights tomorrow/tonight, so I won’t get a chance to see it. My question is do you have a email list to be able to notify people of the next event???

  12. 🙂 Sounds like a good idea. On a serious note, I am going to get a couple of hours sleep then look outside. Hopefully something will be happening.

    I don’t have an aurora email list. If you use Twitter, I have an account by the name of @Nightskyonline. The other alternative is to sign up to the Yahoo group ‘southern-aurora’. You will need to Google it. That is one way I stay abreast of what is happening. The Australian Federal Governement also has an Australian Space Forecast Centre. They do email alerts.

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  13. Hi everyone there is also a mailing list for sightings of aurora australis that I found last night on the net supported by our dep of meteorology. I googled aurora australis sightings and it came up. You can sign up to get sms alerts of possible sightings as well as sms alerts of solar flares etc.

  14. Nino,

    No it didn’t. The CME only arrived about half an hour ago. This is 6 and a half hours later that the latest time it should have arrived according to the computer modelling.

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  15. Hey guys just saw the posts. Seeing as it arrived late would u still be looking out at 2 a.m. tomorrow morning for it

  16. G’day Paul,

    Camped out in southern Tas last night to try and get a glimpse of the Aurora… No aurora but the stars still looked magical. Am I to understand that the time to see it has past now, or is there a chance of seeing it tonight?

    Cheers, JB 🙂

  17. Paul, I can’t believe we went all to way to Abisko, (Northern Sweden), 31Dec 13, looking for the Northern Lights and they could have been in my own backyard,
    (Ballarat). Nights skys were cloudy unfortunately saw nothing but it was an amazing experience.

  18. Anne,

    Good to hear from you. I will firstly point out that I am jealous. That trip is on my list of things to do.

    I believe low level aurora are relatively common in Tasmania if the Sun is cooperating. South of Hobart apparently.

    Regards,

    Paul Floyd.

  19. Yes Paul, it was a dream of mine to go there ever since I was a little girl, but I never thought I would I would. The night train from Stockholm to Abisko was an amazing experience. Snow everywhere, and just so beautiful. The lights from the under carriage of the train lit the surroundings on sither side so you could see quite a lot even though it was dark.
    The lake at Abisko which is about 1.5km from the turiststation is usually a good place to see the aurora beause clouds rarely hang over there for too long however when we were there there were ocassional breaks but not enough to see anything. Anyway I think
    CME’s were low at the time.
    The dog sled ride in the snow and snowmobiling on frozen river and lake at Kiruna was well worth it. Also just to be among other people from all over the world who had come for that chance of the seeing the Northern lights was an unforgettable experience.
    Thanks for replying,
    Kind regards, Anne

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *