Starship Asterisk*

Red Aurora over Poland

Explanation: Northern lights don't usually reach this far south. Magnetic chaos in the Sun's huge Active Region 3664, however, produced a surface explosion that sent a burst of electrons, protons, and more massive, charged nuclei into the Solar System. A few days later, that coronal mass ejection (CME) impacted the Earth and triggered auroras that are being reported unusually far from our planet's north and south poles. The free sky show might not be over -- the sunspot rich AR3664 has ejected even more CMEs that might also impact the Earth tonight or tomorrow. That active region is now near the Sun's edge, though, and will soon be rotating away from the Earth. Pictured, a red and rayed aurora was captured in a single 6-second exposure from Racibórz, Poland early last night. The photographer's friend, seeing an aurora for the first time, is visible in the distance also taking images of the beautifully colorful nighttime sky.

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Amazing display on Friday night from Cornwall in the South-West of the UK. The pillars were bright rapidly changing, in subtle greens, purples and occasionally blue. Didn't know where to look at times, there were some bright transient features due South. Brightest display here for over 20 years I believe.

Managed to take this 1h30min timelapse before my camera battery went dead about 2:00 AM.
Also caught a couple meteors right at the end.
Btw, does anyone know if it's still possible to embed YouTube videos in posts on this board please? Tried various things with the tag but couldn't get it to work.

We had a similar red aurora over Crozet, Virginia, USA on the night of 10/11 May 2024. Very pretty . . . and unusual!

Knight of Clear Skies wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 12:48 pm Amazing display on Friday night from Cornwall in the South-West of the UK. The pillars were bright rapidly changing, in subtle greens, purples and occasionally blue. Didn't know where to look at times, there were some bright transient features due South. Brightest display here for over 20 years I believe.

Managed to take this 1h30min timelapse before my camera battery went dead about 2:00 AM.

https://youtu.be/1MYJhsjX-C4?si=zsBn6ckJw_SLulZa

Also caught a couple meteors right at the end.

Aurora & Meteor 1.JPG

Btw, does anyone know if it's still possible to embed YouTube videos in posts on this board please? Tried various things with the tag but couldn't get it to work.

It works but only if the youtube url is of a specific format, namely like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MYJhsjX-C4

And you need to use the right tags: [youtube][/youtube]

The result looks like so:

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 1:23 pm
The result looks like so:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Thanks johnny, I had to strip a channel parameter off my url in order to get it to work.

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 1:23 pm

Knight of Clear Skies wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 12:48 pm Amazing display on Friday night from Cornwall in the South-West of the UK. The pillars were bright rapidly changing, in subtle greens, purples and occasionally blue. Didn't know where to look at times, there were some bright transient features due South. Brightest display here for over 20 years I believe.

Managed to take this 1h30min timelapse before my camera battery went dead about 2:00 AM.

https://youtu.be/1MYJhsjX-C4?si=zsBn6ckJw_SLulZa

Also caught a couple meteors right at the end.

Aurora & Meteor 1.JPG

Btw, does anyone know if it's still possible to embed YouTube videos in posts on this board please? Tried various things with the tag but couldn't get it to work.

It works but only if the youtube url is of a specific format, namely like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MYJhsjX-C4

And you need to use the right tags: [youtube][/youtube]

The result looks like so:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

I wonder why after I clicked Show in YouTube I was presented with a view defaulted to 480 pixel height video and had to go through options to see 1080 pixel height original video

Knight of Clear Skies wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 3:41 pm

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 1:23 pm
The result looks like so:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Thanks johnny, I had to strip a channel parameter off my url in order to get it to work.

FYI, this URL also works properly in the [youtube][/youtube] tags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MYJhsj ... kJw_SLulZa

VictorBorun wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 3:46 pm

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 1:23 pm

Knight of Clear Skies wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 12:48 pm Amazing display on Friday night from Cornwall in the South-West of the UK. The pillars were bright rapidly changing, in subtle greens, purples and occasionally blue. Didn't know where to look at times, there were some bright transient features due South. Brightest display here for over 20 years I believe.

Managed to take this 1h30min timelapse before my camera battery went dead about 2:00 AM.

https://youtu.be/1MYJhsjX-C4?si=zsBn6ckJw_SLulZa

Also caught a couple meteors right at the end.

Aurora & Meteor 1.JPG

Btw, does anyone know if it's still possible to embed YouTube videos in posts on this board please? Tried various things with the tag but couldn't get it to work.

It works but only if the youtube url is of a specific format, namely like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MYJhsjX-C4

And you need to use the right tags: [youtube][/youtube]

The result looks like so:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

I wonder why after I clicked Show in YouTube I was presented with a view defaulted to 480 pixel height video and had to go through options to see 1080 pixel height original video

Hmm, I get a 720p (1024x720) video resolution when I click on the link. I would think the default resolution is set by the video author, but I don't know why, if that was true, you and I would experience different results.

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 3:52 pm

VictorBorun wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 3:46 pm

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 1:23 pm

It works but only if the youtube url is of a specific format, namely like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MYJhsjX-C4

And you need to use the right tags: [youtube][/youtube]

The result looks like so:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

I wonder why after I clicked Show in YouTube I was presented with a view defaulted to 480 pixel height video and had to go through options to see 1080 pixel height original video

Hmm, I get a 720p (1024x720) video resolution when I click on the link. I would think the default resolution is set by the video author, but I don't know why, if that was true, you and I would experience different results.

I think it's determined by some combination of viewer preferences (depending on cookies and Google account setup) and some automatics that try to assess the connection quality.

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 4:27 pm

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 3:52 pm

VictorBorun wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 3:46 pm
I wonder why after I clicked Show in YouTube I was presented with a view defaulted to 480 pixel height video and had to go through options to see 1080 pixel height original video

Hmm, I get a 720p (1024x720) video resolution when I click on the link. I would think the default resolution is set by the video author, but I don't know why, if that was true, you and I would experience different results.

I think it's determined by some combination of viewer preferences (depending on cookies and Google account setup) and some automatics that try to assess the connection quality.

Ah, yes, the connection quality must be a part of the calculation. Makes sense in order to provide a better default, non-laggy, user experience.

Are there any photos of the recent auroras taken from space, perhaps from aboard the ISS?

It is partly a magenta aurora. That means that we are seeing ionized nitrogen, which comes in both red and blue colors. Obviously we are seeing the ordinary red aurora from atomic oxygen at 630 nm, too. But it takes more energy to ionize a magenta aurora, which is what we are seeing here.


Ann

Really endearing image!!!
According to the emission spectrum, a modified machine should allow to capture more details around the blue mainly.

On Friday at times I also saw blue aurora, both in images and with the naked eye. I think it takes more energy to excite nitrogen atoms enough to produce the blue color as its a higher wavelength. Mostly I saw magenta (blue + red). I suspect the blue colour is caused when a particularly energetic stream of particles hits the atmosphere but I'm not quite sure how the physics works out. Might be to do with the average energy of the incoming particles, that it excites most of the target molecules to the higher state (producing blue when they step back down) without exciting many to the lower state (producing little red).