- Southern Hemisphere Sky Events

Possibility of aurora Sunday night

There is the possibility of further aurora activity tomorrow night (11 March 2012) for far Southern locations when a massive cloud of plasma ejected from the Sun yesterday afternoon begins to impact the Earth’s magnetosphere. According to Spaceweather.com, the plasma (or more technically a coronal mass ejection) should arrive at 0649 UT (+/- 7 hours) 11 March 2012. That corresponds to 4.49 pm AEST (add one hour if your location follows daylight savings time). This means that if you live in Southern Australia, and live away from city lights, it is worth stepping outside as twilight ends to look to the South for an aurora.

Last night, weak aurora where seen from Hobart (Tasmania, Australia) and from just outside Perth (Western Australia). The Moon interfered significantly with the visibility of last nights aurora. For those curious about seeing aurora, textbooks that I have read about the best time to look for an aurora is around mid-night local time. That said, the only time I have seen an aurora from Canberra, Australia was around 8 pm local time. If you are in one of the locations already mentioned, you are looking for faint red and green slowly moving clouds of light.

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