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The Sun has been active lately. I've been keeping my eye on the two orbiting LASCO coronagraphs. Following the a large coronal mass ejection on 28 October, I sent out a heads up to the Yass Valley Astronomical Society members to be on the lookout for an Aurora Australis display last night. Based on the solar wind predictions, it was predicted to arrive at the Earth's atmosphere at 11pm last night at Kp=5 and strengthen to 6 during the night. the Kp scale is a scale used to describe the strength of geomagnetic storms. At Kp=4, and at my latitude 34 south, the aurora is detectable photographically in short exposures looking south. At Kp 5 it is easier and at Kp 6, it can cover the entire sky as occurred last night.
This photo was taken at 13:57 UT about an hour after the first photo I posted and when the storm had strengthened to Kp 6. In this photo, the camera is looking south, Magellanic clouds perched high in the sky.
In the second photo, remarkably I am looking north. That's Orion and Taurus behind the aurora that extends all the way to the north horizon.
Hi again Joe. More great pictures of the Aurora Australis from you here. And the colors do look better on your website. While I was there I browsed around your site and it is really impressive and nice. Thanks for sharing these pictures with us Joe, and the very best of regards.
Marshall
Sky-Watcher 90mm f/13.8 Maksutov-Cassegrain on motorized Multimount
Orion Astroview 120ST f/5 Refractor on EQ3 mount
Celestron Comet Catcher 140mm f/3.64 Schmidt-Newtonian on alt-az mount
Celestron Omni XLT150R f/5 Refractor on CG4 mount with dual axis drives.
Orion 180mm f/15 Maksutov-Cassegrain on CG5-GT Goto mount.
Orion XT12i 12" f/4.9 Dobsonian Intelliscope.
Kamakura 7x35 Binoculars and Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 Binoculars. ZWO ASI 120MC camera.
>)))))*>
Makuser wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 9:04 pm
Hi again Joe. More great pictures of the Aurora Australis from you here. And the colors do look better on your website. While I was there I browsed around your site and it is really impressive and nice. Thanks for sharing these pictures with us Joe, and the very best of regards.
Thanks for your kind comments Marshall,
Yes that colour??? I have the colour spaces on my files set to SRGB 2.1 the default colour for most non-colour managed web browsers. I have not seen this sort of problem for a long time.
Joe
Amateur astronomer since 1978...................Web site :http://joe-cali.com/ Scopes: ATM 18" Dob, Vixen VC200L, ATM 6"f7, Stellarvue 102ED, Saxon ED80, WO M70 ED, Orion 102 Maksutov, ST80. Mounts: Takahashi EM-200, iOptron iEQ45, Push dobsonian with Nexus DSC, three homemade EQ's. Eyepieces: TV Naglers 31, 17, 12, 7; Denkmeier D21 & D14; Pentax XW10, XW5, Unitron 40mm Kellner, Meade Or 25,12 Cameras : Pentax K1, K5, K01, K10D / VIDEO CAMS : TacosBD, Lihmsec. Cam/guider/controllers: Lacerta MGEN 3, SW Synguider, Simulation Curriculum SkyFi 3+Sky safari Memberships Astronomical Association of Queensland; RASNZ Occultations Section; Single Exposure Milky Way Facebook Group (Moderator) (12k members), The Sky Searchers (moderator)
When I took these photos, I thought they looked more like airglow than aurora. Because this phenomena occurred at the exact time of a predicted geomagnetic storm / auroral event, and because it was faintly visible (very rare for airglow events), I leaned towards labelling the images as aurorae.
On reflection, I believe this image is a bright airglow, not an auroral event.
Cheers
Joe
Amateur astronomer since 1978...................Web site :http://joe-cali.com/ Scopes: ATM 18" Dob, Vixen VC200L, ATM 6"f7, Stellarvue 102ED, Saxon ED80, WO M70 ED, Orion 102 Maksutov, ST80. Mounts: Takahashi EM-200, iOptron iEQ45, Push dobsonian with Nexus DSC, three homemade EQ's. Eyepieces: TV Naglers 31, 17, 12, 7; Denkmeier D21 & D14; Pentax XW10, XW5, Unitron 40mm Kellner, Meade Or 25,12 Cameras : Pentax K1, K5, K01, K10D / VIDEO CAMS : TacosBD, Lihmsec. Cam/guider/controllers: Lacerta MGEN 3, SW Synguider, Simulation Curriculum SkyFi 3+Sky safari Memberships Astronomical Association of Queensland; RASNZ Occultations Section; Single Exposure Milky Way Facebook Group (Moderator) (12k members), The Sky Searchers (moderator)
