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The Bz was heading negative so I was on aurora watch. My front deck faces south and is a few steps from the fireplace in my living room.
Earlier in the evening, I could see a pallid colourless faint glow with no structure.
At around 10:15pm local time, things went off. Suddenly I could see some red above, green below and pillars(beams).
I settled into my reclining camp lounge and enjoyed the show.
The Large Magellanic Cloud was at anti-culmination sitting below the south celestial pole and is at the centre of most images. Here are a handful of the images I took.
Joe Cali (OzEclipse)
34 South - The Hilltops Observatory
Hilltops region, Young, New South Wales, Australia. [148E, 34S]
Amateur astronomer since 1978.....Web site :http://joe-cali.com/.....Total & Annular Eclipses Observed:18 Scopes: ATM 18" Dob, Vixen VC200L, Hand Made 6"f7, Stellarvue 102ED, Saxon ED80, WO M70 ED, Orion 102 Maksutov, Coronado PST Binoculars: Celestron Skymaster Pro 15x70, SV Bony SV202 10x42ED Mounts: Takahashi EM-200, iOptron iEQ45, Push Dobsonian with Nexus DSC, 3 ATM EQ mounts. ..............Losmandy Starlapse, Vixen Polarie and Skywatcher Star Adventurer compact trackers. Eyepieces: TV Naglers 31, 17, 12, 7; Denkmeier D21 & D14; Pentax XW10, XW5. Cameras : ZWO ASI2600MC, Pentax K1, K5, K01, K10D / VIDEO CAMS : TacosBD, Lihmsec. Cam/guider/controllers: Lacerta MGEN 3, SW Synguider, Simulation Curriculum SkyFi 3+Sky safari Memberships The Sky Searchers (moderator); Astronomical Association of Queensland; RASNZ Occultations Section.
EAA Observing from the Isle of Wight, UK Telescope: Celestron CPC800, NexStar 4se - Camera: Player One Ares-C PRO, Altair Astro 294c PRO, ZWO ASI 533MM Software: SharpCap, Stellarium and AstroPlanner. YouTube 'EAA with an 8-inch SCT' https://www.youtube.com/@Xio2011
"The Hankmeister" Celestron 8SE, orange tube Vixen made C80, CG4, AZ-EQ5 and SolarQuest mounts.
Too much Towa glass/mirrors.
Solar:
HA - PST stage 2 mod with 90mm ERF on a Celestron XLT 102 (thanks Mike!)
Ca-K - W/O 61mm, Antares 1.6 barlow, Baader 3.8 OD and Ca-K filters with a ZWO ASI174mm.
W/L - C80-HD with Baader 5.0 & 3.8 Solar film, Solar Continuum 7.5nm and UV/IR filters with a Canon EOS 550D. Member of the RASC
A few more images from the Monday August 12 Geomagnetic Storm.
The storm started out as a result of a series of M class flares ranging up to M1.9
About an hour and a half after twilight, a weak display lacking any structure was appearing in photographs in the south. Nothing visible to the naked eye. Magnetometer readings (Bz) were going negative. I kept an eye on things and not much happened. I went out to check at ~15-20 min intervals.
With nothing happening, I took my eye off the ball for a while.
After the event, I read it was somewhere between a Kp7 and Kp8 storm. Such storms are often visible to the eye in southern Australia but not in northern Australia at tropical latitudes as occurred during the Gannon Event on May 11. The coloured circles are the NOAA estimate of visual detectability of various strengths of aurora. This Kp 7-8 event was easily visible as far north as southern NSW. The red shading on the Australian continent is my attempt to show visibility.
At 10:15pm local [2024-08-12/@ 12:15UT], I went out to check. I could clearly see multiple vertical pillars and some faint red was now visible to the naked eye. Photographically, the display was now strong and the beams/pillars were moving quickly.
Member of the RASC
