From livescience.com
The sun has just bombarded Earth with the most powerful geomagnetic storm our planet has seen in more than six years. The massive storm occurred after an eruption from an extremely rare "double" X-class flare disturbed Earth's magnetic field, lighting up the skies across the globe with vibrant auroras and other luminous phenomena.
The explosive event is another clear sign that the sun has likely reached the fiery peak of its roughly 11-year cycle of activity, known as solar maximum, meaning Earth could be in the firing line of more of these potentially harmful solar storms in the coming months.
On Saturday (March 23), the sun unleashed a 1.1 magnitude X-class solar flare — the most powerful type of explosion the sun can produce. This blast was unusual because it was made up of two simultaneous explosions, known as a sympathetic solar flare, ejected by a pair of sunspots (AR3614 and AR3615) separated by hundreds of thousands of miles, Spaceweather.com reported.
From me
WOW!!
Having chased auroras in the southern land for over a decade now I found myself surrounded by metaphorical ducks lined up in ways I’d only dreamed about. This is how it played out.
Having been alerted to the solar storm that was on its way I prepared myself to capture a few images. I realised the geomagnetic activity was going to be intense, I’ve been the visual recipient to a few events in my time. My camera was charged, card cleaned and settings adjusted.
In the past clouds, wind, fog, snow and the full moon have all countered my enthusiasm for a great photo. Tonight, March the 25th the winds were light, the sky’s clear and the relative humidity enough to stave off any chance of fog. The moon? Full!! In my experience with astrophotography a full moon meant that half of the night sky would be washed out by light and thus render capturing the full impact of the Aurora nil. Sure I was to get some nice photos, but to obtain the full extent of the energy transfer happening hundreds of kilometres about my head, I was very uncertain of accomplishing.
Anyway as the night approached I took a walk with Dave (Mawson Doctor) out onto the West Arm of our homely harbour. There I set up a couple of Gopro’s to capture the action. Tethered to an external power bank I assumed the batteries would last all night and time-lapse anything cool.
Having set the cameras up and now back on station the sun had set just moments ago under the horizon, it was 7:30pm and 3 stars could be seen. Also so could an Aurora!! The dancing lights waving like a flag ribboning from south to north. This Aurora was a singular curtain of energy. Pulsing with red and green neon highlights, we witnessed the spectacle under a dark blue, but not black sky. It was on.
I sent out a few messages around station, conveyed my enthusiasm to the situation and got myself readied with cold weather gear and my camera setup.
I left the comfort of our living quarters and headed on outside and down to the start of East Arm. Hoping to get a photo of Auroras against the ice edge I was not only armed with a sturdy tripod and camera, but also airpods providing another energy to the night.
The moon was full and washing the light from the stars and so too my expectations. The heavens were void of any auroral activity. Bummer!! I’d made a call and got people excited about a phenomenon that hasn’t eventuated. The dancing lights of earlier had disappeared, extinguished by our lunar friend, or perhaps they were the tail end of the solar storm. The wind had picked up a little and I was feeling sort of flat. At 8:30 I took some photos of the ice cliffs and moon just to make sure my settings were right. After a couple of shots I realised I had not adjusted my lens to fit my full frame sensor. Phew!! Thankfully that was picked up and corrected. The next shot was taken in more of a westerly direction, as I’d been shooting SW until now. All of the settings seemed ready. Still the sky was blue and empty. I walked towards the Wharf and took a picture on approach. looking at the back of my camera I studied the photo, there in the distance was a faint red line. I became energised. Now all I needed to do was find a vista somewhere on station and wait for the aurora to come to me. As it turned out I had to get to the aurora. What proceeded was 45 minutes of the most beautiful example of Auroras I’ve ever seen. The moon stood back and allowed pink, crimson, red, orange, purple and greens to play in the sky. It was rushed. It was amazing. It was spectacular!! For the first time in my life I was able to capture what I saw. I was able to see what I captured. This sounds a bit funny, but with astrophotography often the camera picks up more light and colours than our eyes ever could.
This night was different. Not only did this night energise the heavens, it also energised this expeditioner.
As for the GoPro…………..hmmm the batteries didn’t last more than an hour and a half, but enough to capture the event.
