Aurora Pays a Visit

Good evening.  Around about 36 hours ago before writing this post, I noticed an uptick in internet chatter about a CME that had erupted from the Sun and was heading straight towards Earth.  I've seen these alerts numerous times.  More often or not, they don't come to much, especially at the latitude where I'm at.  Then, there is the great British weather.  It's Winter and it is supposed to be cloudy, wet and windy.  One of life's most sure things.

Fast forward to 24 hours ago, and the internet chatter wasn't going away.  It continued.  Certain astronomy groups started paying a bit more attention and so I sat up a bit more and paid it more attention.  I have two go to apps on my phone.  The first is a relatively real time reading of solar activity hosted from Lancaster university.  It's a great app for showing the here and now.  The second app is a Space Weather app. It give's a bit more detail, but also is bold enough to give predictions.  It too seemed to be getting quite excited.  But then, there is the party pooper. *insert name of any weather forecasting app here - It's cloudy and rain is forecast all night.  21.45.  Enough of this.  I'm ready for an early night.  It's time for bed.... but I might as well check out the back door as I'm putting my cup in the dishwasher.

Mmm, Orion's looking clear tonight.  And Jupiter is particularly bright, nested in next to Castor and Pollux.  Where's that cloud and rain that *random weather app was telling me about?  Let's go out into the garden proper and at least enjoy a bit of mark 1 eyeball astro before going to bed.  What else can we see?  Is it a night for spotting Andromeda naked eye?  Let's look round to the North East.....

ALI!  COME AND SEE THE AURORA!  As I looked around, there was a definite red hue to the sky.  We were in luck.  As the eyes become more accustomed to the dark, the greens started to become more apparent.  The front of our house is kind of North facing-ish.  If there was anything significant, we would see it out there.  What we saw when we walked around to the front of the house was just insane.

A curtain of green light dances through Ursa Major

It was time to start raising the alarm.  The obligatory couple of quick Facebook pics on a post.  A quick recall on who I thought would want to know.  A message to a friend around the corner who, as it turns out, was already in bed.  Another message to a neighbour.  Who else to tell?  Another Facebook post.  Time to get outside people, it's kicking off!

The greens and reds intensify as the solar storm hits the atmosphere, and Ursa Major continues to shine through.

We've been fortunate enough to see aurora from home before, just as we were approaching solar maximum.  As impressive and worth while as that was, this was on another level.  We were eventually joined out in the street by our neighbour and his family, who, were also in the process of getting ready for bed.  It was such a pleasure and privilege to spend our time watching in awe with them.  This display hit differently.  Incredibly bright curtains of green appeared and disappeared within seconds in front of our eyes.  Over head, to the North and even looking South.

Aurora appears to cut through Orion and Gemini

By this time, the rest of the internet had woken up.  The socials were going bonkers.  Not only for us here in Herefordshire, but from all corners of the country and even down into Brittany.  This was a pretty remarkable event and the power of technology and social media brought it to the masses.

The urge to go knocking door to door was very real.  How could we stand there showing one of the most awesome displays of nature, and not get everyone up to see it?  Stand there we did.  Gaze in awe and wonder, we did.

For the record, the readings were mad.  At peak, 1128.3nT.  Bonkers.  All images shot in night mode with Google Pixel 10.  Should have got my DSLR out.  Too excited.  Didn't want to miss anything.