Aurora images from last night

Last night at 2am the clouds cleared and there was a lovely glow in the north, we werent sure if it was an Aurora so i was able to confirm by taking an exposure. The green arc measured about 60deg long and approx 30deg high. About an hour after watching it dim and come back to life and really big beam appeared 40deg away from the Aurora on its own and quickly moved across the sky to join the band. Aurora was then convered at 3:45am

Last night was a real nice unexpected observing session. A solar wind stream from a coronal hole in the sun had impacted the earth however the sky was completely overcast. Conor and i arranged to meet later in the night and the sky cleared around 01.43LT. By 01.55 we spotted an aurora forming low in the north. It was obvious the display was growing brighter and taller as we watched. At its peak the display was visible in the west within CrB and extended just by the north in Lynx. It was a 100* long green band 13* high. A tall green vertical beam appeared in the north reaching 40* above the horizon touching Muschida in Uma. We could easily see the beam moving across the sky to the east followed later by a second beam 35* tall in the west. We seen several meteors zipping through the display which lasted untill approx 1.5 hours before dawn. Conor took a selection of exposures with his new camera which caught it in action.

Afterwards we observed the Veil Nebula in Cygnus through the 16". As the earth rotated i could see more of this ghostly supernova remenant enter the field untill i could detect its glowing curved structure for more than 4 moon diameters (2*)..it was a real neat sight within the milkyway background. We ended the night before dawn with Conor taking exposures of the night sky while i hunted for new comets. It was a really dark clean night and the naked eye milkyway just blew us away as well as several great meteors. Calm, cool, T= 9, S=5, patchy grey non threatening east moving clouds.

This is my 55th observed aurora and the 2nd display we have seen within a week. Looks like my good feeling about this month has been true

Good images Conor!

Hi Conor, the radio aurora faded out at 2000 last night, it was excellent before that, guess we were out of luck for a good visual, you might have had more luck being more northerly
Here is a map of Eu showing what locations I worked.
www.qsl.net/ei5fk/images/aur31aug.png
How do I get the image on this page ?
Best wishes
Charles Cork

Seems like you're getting better weather then us here in Limerick at the moment.
All I saw was rain.

A weak CME is to hit tonight...

Nice Catch Conor, did'nt see it myself, though it was a great clear night.

Keith.