Astral Awesomeness

Since I had my first experience of a full Aurora display back in October 2024, Aurora hunting has become a fascination for me. The “mission” of capturing an Aurora display on camera is quite demanding: 1) you need to track solar storm activity and see if those storms are accompanied by Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) that are earth directed; 2) you need to get the earth arrival time of CMEs right (which is very difficult); 3) you need to get to a dark-sky site (where there is minimal light pollution); 4) you need to have clear skies (free of cloud cover); 5) you need to know what you’re doing with your camera settings (once you locate the “invisible” light display in the skies). Then there is the matter of going out into the dark night until the early hours of the morning on a “work night” (it’s no fun rushing into the office after only 3 hours of sleep). On top of all that, there is never a guarantee that the Aurora will put in a good show – change in direction or strength of solar winds could lead to CMEs barely glancing the earth or missing all together.

Compared to the Northern hemisphere, it's not as easy to see Aurora displays in the Southern hemisphere. This is because of low availability of land in the Southern hemisphere – “down South” Aurora displays occur further South, typically over the ocean near the Antarctic. People in the South of Tasmania and the South Island of New Zealand tend to see it more often than people on mainland Australia.

The above challenges will not stop me from trying to see the Aurora Australis whenever I can. Once you see a full display, you’re hooked, and you want to see it again and again. There’s something mesmerising about standing in the full light of an Aurora display.

Even seeing a faint display (like the one in the photo accompanying this post) is exciting and rewarding. The colours are never exactly the same in each event. Sometimes you’ll also see white “pillars” or “folds” in the light curtains. Sometimes the display will hang for minutes like a sheet of colour, and other times the display will glow and fade as it moves through the darkness. When capturing this photo, the sky was lit by a very bright half-moon (on its way to a full moon), so the sky appeared deep blue rather than black. The light of the moon diluted the colours of the Aurora, making it appear dim. Nevertheless, we captured a faint showing of reds, yellows and greens against a star-studded indigo sky.    

Moments like this are rare treasures.


Image: Aurora Australis seen from Victoria, Australia. Copyright - Michael Beaton

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