Aurora Visible, Northwest, 01:00hrs

Have been out observing for the past hour and a half (see other post), and I spotted an aurora build up in the west/northwest at 00:40hrs. Spikes visible through Perseus, green hue in color, some movement.

Seanie.

At around 12am last night i had decided to go out and test my new camera i had got. Just before i was leaving the house i checked the Aurora oval and the activity was building up fast. So i grabbed my camera and got on some warm clothes and headed out to meet martin(martinastro). He was already outside with his scope and he had noticed the sky being very bright. When i went in and grapped my scope Martin noticed a beam as i was not properly dark adapted. At this time i had only got my camera not earlier and didnt really know the settings. I took many small 2sec exposures. You could see the beams and the arc no problem, but there was no colour or any nice detail. At this stage the Aurora had really taken over the North and west of the sky with a lovely green arc and many sharp blue/purple beams. The Aurora just kept growing and growing and turned in to be a great display. When my camera was full the Aurora had now died off so i decided to run in and load them on to the computer and come back out with my camera empty. On the way out of the house again i hit a few buttons on my camera by mistake. When i came out in the back garden martin was still taking images of the now faint Aurora. When i set up the camera i was ready for a 2sec exposure but it just lasted for alot longer! I found out that i had a 15sec exposure on my small 3.2mp camera. I couldnt belive it. So away i went in to the football pitch and started taking exposure after exposure. The only bad thing was the Aurora was now quite dim and bearly only a few beams visible. The time was now approaching 2:30am and clouds were moving in. My camera was going battery dead as of many long exposures and the cold. I grabbed a few last shots of this and then the camera went. By now it was 3:15am and dawn was near. So we packed up and head in after a long very enjoyable night. here is the link to my photos

www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=20764

Those images are great Conor, they even looked great on the LCD screen last night. I particularily like the one with us two and the aurora in the back ground!!!

This aurora was amazing when it first appeared at 00.26UT and was visible all night!! It peaked in actvity visually between 00.20 and 01.00 but grew in intensity again before dawn. We could see amazing very bright white 'search lights' reaching 35* above the west to north horizon within Gemini, Auriga, Perseus and Camelopardalis. The vertical beams where numerous and moved swiftly to the north causing the bright star Capella to dim!! On 3 different occasions we seen a meteor zip through the aurora including on earth grazer.
After 03.00 the auroras morphology changed to a giant green homogenous band 40* in height with faint beams (blue) and the whole display was fighting against the glow of morning twilight. We took images of the milkway and aurora all night long. Conor done a fabulous job with his new camera with an expsoure of 15 sec which was tripod mounted at ISO400, with his dertermination he imaged nice colour and beams that where invisible to the unaided eye!!!....great stufff. It amazes me that on the day that Conor gets his first camera nature rewarded his wait with a beautiful unexpected display of the northern lights. We had an amazing night and an amzing day all centered around nature and the universe and a digital camera lol...another great memory!!

Great stuff Conor and glad you seen it to Seannie....nice one!