Northern Lights

October 2nd 2024

I am on a ship to see the Northern Lights. Sadly, the weather has not cooperated. Clouds make it difficult for the lights to be seen.

On the 2nd, the clouds broke for a small period of time, and I was able to shoot these.

It is very important to know that what you are seeing is what the camera sees, but not what the naked eye sees.  When I looked into the night sky, all of these greens were white. Why?

“Humans use two different kinds of cells in their eyes to sense light. Cone cells are the main cells we use for vision in the daytime. Rod cells can detect much fainter light at night but only see in black and white and shades of gray. Aurora only appears to us in shades of gray because the light is too faint to be sensed by our color-detecting cone cells.

The most common aurora color is green.

Red auroras are comparatively less frequent and are usually associated with intense solar activity. They occur when solar particles react with oxygen at higher altitudes.

Thursday, October 3rd

There are a lot of clouds tonight – so there is not much visible activity.

Friday, October 4th

I didn’t even go outside.  This is looking through the windows of the boat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center issued watches for strong geomagnetic storms from October 4th through Sunday the 9th.

Essentially, the sun has produced solar flares on Tuesday and Thursday of this week, both associated with coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, plumes of solar material, and magnetic fields currently en route toward Earth. On October 3rd, there was a solar flare that was said to be the largest of the current solar cycle and the biggest since 2017.

All that is wonderful, but as long as there are clouds,  you can’t see much, no matter how active.

 

October 5th – Tromso

The weather is still not cooperating and has bathed Tromso in Clouds. -If you put the video on full screen, you can see the lights dance among the clouds.

And two still photos from the night.

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No one tells you that what you are looking at is what my camera sees. Except on very rare occasions, the human eye sees only white, which is why when the lights are amongst the clouds, they are challenging to spot.

October 6th

Tonight was special!   The greens and reds were so intense that they were visible to the naked eye, making for a very special evening.

I was so surprised to see so much, as the much anticipated solar activity had passed us by.

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