Most amazing night ever! 10/11th May 2024

[Montana]

What an amazing experience last night was. Usually I go to the cow field and sit and take images and wonder if what I am seeing is faint green or Manchester sky glow. Well, last night I had no need to worry of Manchester sky glow as the aurora was more than directly overhead, most of the time I was imaging to the south!!!

After an immediate encounter with the local ladies who came to nosy what we were doing, Darren gave them lots of cuddles, neck scratches and got lots of big licks back, they then calmly all sat down together behind us and went to sleep (thankfully).

I started getting excited that I could see green, then as it got darker towards 11pm it all kicked off. We were literally dancing under the aurora. It was on par with a total eclipse but lasted much longer. When it started to fade around 1am we went back home to bed, but I think it started up again an hour later. We saw two other couples wandering down to the cow field just as we were leaving and chatted to them. Here are a selection but all the rest are here https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexandra ... 863667333/

DSC05373a by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05353 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05339 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05325a by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05322 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05319 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05317 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05309 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05286 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05285 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05279 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05270 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05262 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05204 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

DSC05166 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

Alexandra

[astroshot]

Amazing night Alexandra!
Wonderful to have a set of beautiful photos to cherish the memories.

[ffellah]

You are so lucky, Alexandra ! Stunning images, what a wonderful record of this historic event. The colors are so vibrant, you caught them in all their beauty. Fantastic job !

Franco

[Martin_S]

Wow what a great experience Alexandra, thanks for sharing it with us.

[vineyard]

It was magical wasn't it. Great shots. We could even see it in Bortle 9 central London!

[LucaR]

Great pictures! North of France here, it was incredible also. Couln't take decent pictures, but it will stay in my memory for long time :-)

[pdmphoton]

Absolutely Stunning!!

Paulm

[rsfoto]

Beutiful serie of images and even some Angel Wings #4-5

[cte]

Wonderful pictures Alexandra, glowing pink skyes were above my town as well but I was not able to see them. I was out tonight for deep sky imaging, and I was hoping to finally catch the aurora for the first time in my life , but it did not materialize, then clouds arrived.

[MapleRidge]

Hi Alexandra...

So good to see your pics and glad you had the clear skies to catch the views. A Mooo-ving experience

The cows remind me of the days on the farm when I'd occasionally get a nose or two reaching over the observatory walls. I had to put up electric fence to keep them back...cows don't have the driest nose

Brian

[KMH]

Wow - beautiful pictures! Sounds like a great experience. We checked a few times here, but saw nothing but clouds.

Kevin

[rigel123]

All good but that 4th one steals the show! Just amazing!

[DeepSolar64]

WooHoo!! I am glad your skies were clear to see it Alexandra. It is absolutely beautiful! I got to see it too and it is was an experience I will never forget. Far more impressive than the faint one I saw back in 1981.

Two thumbs up and two toes too on a beautiful set of photos you took. Hats off...

James

[EricF]

Those are great Alexandra.

The colours are fantastic.


Eric.

[marktownley]

Stunning results Alexandra!

[Carbon60]

Superb images, Alexandra. You've skilfully captured lots of lovely hues and details.

Stu.

[MAURITS]

Excellent Alexandra.

[DeepSolar64]

Again, Congrats Alexandra. I am so glad you got to see the aurora. Check out my aurora post. It is so rare here.

James

[H-Alpha]

Amazing!
Once in a life time!!!!
Thanks for sharing with all of us who could not observe it (although it reached Athens!, which was cloudy... :-(, but some people got something between clouds)
I am so happy for you Alexandra that you had this fantastic experience and you could also capture it!

Best wishes,
Alexandros

[Montana]

Thanks everyone for all the fantastic comments and shared memories. One thing I have encountered many times over the last few days is people asking me what I saw visually. So before I forget I tried to desaturate my images to show what I could see, then would point the camera at, then a 3 second exposure by camera.

10/11th May 2024 Aurora by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

10/11th May 2024 Aurora by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

10/11th May 2024 Aurora by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

10/11th May 2024 Aurora by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

10/11th May 2024 Aurora by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

10/11th May 2024 Aurora by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr

I think this is a fair view of what I could see.

Alexandra

[DeepSolar64]

Alexandra,
The results were the same for me. The camera pics up color better than the eye does. I could see much color at times by eye but the fainter parts of the auroral display looked white while the camera with a 3 sec exposure picked up the color easily in those fainter portions.

Great illustrations!!

James

[Dennis]

Amazing view Alexandra. I hope more of these will happen during the solar maximum.

[Albireo]

Amazing images Alexandra!
They were very visible from Germany as well and it was the first time I’ve seen auroras with my own eyes. I‘m still riding that high

Here’s one of my favorites from just at the street in front of my flat

IMG_0568.jpeg (1.37 MiB) Viewed 1873 times

Jan

[DeepSolar64]

Beautiful!!

[nicspenceryork]

Absolutely fantastic images Alexandra, wonderful to see. Your images which represent what's seen with the eye are really clever and accurate to my experience. I looked north at first and saw a red hue which I've seen before and then, like you, when I looked south my eyes nearly fell out of my head! I'd been reading about STEVE since I saw the last faint aurora and had made a mental note to look out for 'him'. I was confused at first what I was seeing because the angel wings which you've captured so beautifully appeared on my iPhone screen directly up above and I thought, 'STEVE didn't look like that from the images I saw online last time'. That was when it dawned on me that it wasn't STEVE at all but that the aurora was directly overhead. I had a jaw dropping few minutes savouring the sight with my eyes and then grabbed a few iPhone shots! Isn't that the beauty of Solarchat, where you can share these experiences and images and feel the emotions in others which directly match you own! What an experience!
Nic

[arnedanielsen]

Wonderful images of a fantastic display, Alexandra! So glad you got to see and image it!

[marktownley]

Good and realisitic comparison Alexandra!