Aurora Watch this Weekend

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123447#Comment_122123447

Would it have been related to the solar flares I wonder

SouthWesterly

I got both

Tigerbaby

They're an amazing sight. 

Look to the zenith over your head and you may actually see the stream of charged particles moving at incredible speed. Give your eyes time to adjust.
I saw this a few years ago from here in Dublin 15, as well as the shimmering curtains of course.

Stunning

Meteorite58

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123603#Comment_122123603

Nah, just the breeze coming in off the cold sea I would think, have never heard of the aurora affecting the Earths weather down to sea level but maybe those in the know might have more insight into if there are any impacts on the weather further up in the atmosphere.

tom1ie

I’m in an elevated area of rathfarnham and I was keeping an eye out last night but didn’t see anything!
Am I too close to the city to see the light show?
I was looking North towards the city but possibly I should’ve been looking to the south west?
Will we get another light show tonight?

I.am.Putins.raging.bile.duct

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123606#Comment_122123606

I remember seeing spectacular aurora a few nights in a month when i worked nights for a band as a roadie and we'd be doing a lot of gigs around north mayo and Donegal. It was around the year 2000 or 2001 i think.

I remember having to look away for about 20 seconds and look back to notice the change in the shapes. Last time I could see it flowing like smoke. Amazing. Hopefully we get a few more nights of it while the good weather lasts.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123617#Comment_122123617

…use your phone to find the lights, cam sensors are far more sensitive than the eye, pictures shown arent what people actually see…..

ForestFire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123644#Comment_122123644

So I'm wondering now, all these wonderful pictures we see from Iceland etc, and the tourist trade to see the lights...

When you spend 2k to get there, whats it actually like in Iceland to the naked eye?

Hippodrome Song Owl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123644#Comment_122123644

I saw better than what my pictures show. I thought like you did until I saw it in person last night.

aidanodr

Mr Musk and his Starlink Satellites

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1789173902289338518

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123675#Comment_122123675

hit and miss in iceland, i know people that have gone, and seen zip, i know people that took a couple of trips to iceland to see them, they were rewarded on their last trip, but that was their second attempt i think. this is common enough with extremely difficult to predict events, but we now live in a world of extremely high expectations, i havent seen the lights at all in iceland, but ive been going in the summer, and its not my highest priority…..

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123675#Comment_122123675

Good question but I don't know the answer but I'm as curious as yourself to know the answer so hopefully someone here can tell us.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123171#Comment_122123171

If your phone camera has a manual mode that allows individual settings to be adjusted - labeled Pro in my native Samsung phone app - you want to set the white balance to about 5000K, the iso (sensitivity) to somewhere around 100-250 and then the confusing aperture/time to somewhere in the 8-20 seconds range. Nightmode uses too high an ISO for my taste and makes for a grainier/noisier image.

And if you have a phone tripod use that or hold the phone with hands pressed against a wall or other firm support and try not to jiggle the camera when activating the shutter or during the exposure. Now that I think of it, I have a gizmo to attach the phone to the windshield so I should have used that on an outside window of the car - duh!

aidanodr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123740#Comment_122123740

"then the confusing aperture/time to somewhere in the 8-20 seconds range"

That being longer exposure time @cnocbui ?? As you said, need tripod for that

firemansam4

..

firemansam4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123675#Comment_122123675

Ive been to Iceland twice, first time was just cloudy the whole time and seen nothing, second time was better and saw them a few nights.

Last night in Ireland was actually more like what you would see in Iceland, having them above your head and more brighter, normally in Ireland you have to look to the horizon to see them.

They never look as good as the photographs you see, a camera picks up the colours and intensity way better than our eyes can. They look more like a milky colour to the human eye with hints of colour. However if you give your eyes time to adjust to the night sky, not looking at phones or anything else bright it is possible to see the colours a bit better.

lawred2

Where can I go later with the kids in North Dublin? Do we need truly dark skies?

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123786#Comment_122123786

you re better off alright, away from city lights, nicer experience as well, get everyone out in the wild with the good weather

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123748#Comment_122123748

Yes, manually set long exposure time. I find the symbol and notation confusing, being an amateur photographer, as it's an aperture icon and even has the F number, which is slightly pointless as it's fixed aperture. I think it should have been an hourglass symbol with a number followed by sec.

Everything I have posted has been from my camera mounted on a good tripod. I messed around with my S10 a bit while the camera was busy shooting the timelapse. Heres one from the phone:

cnocbui

… and here's another from the camera with the red channel reduced a bit:

Decani

Can't post links but Suspicious0bservers on YouTube does a daily update in less than 3 mins.

cnocbui

Light pollution map: https://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/large_light_pollution_map.html

Fortunately I'm in a dark green locale. Got some amazing shots of Comet Neowise. Cities should turn off all street lights at 1am and force businesses to turn off al their stuff too, advertising, flood lights, etc. NZ has an island that's a designated dark sky park where no lights are allowed.
I want to return to the southern hemisphere where the night sky is about 3 times better than the boring north.

Calibos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123748#Comment_122123748

Great tips cnocbui! Could have used them last night on Bray Beach. Thankfully my brother and his Fiancee got some decent shots. Will try again tonight. Didn't even know where to find the settings on my Samsung Phone. LOL. Found them now though so all set. Finally I get to put the Z Flip 5 folding mechanism and my Smartwatch to really interesting use other than the usual. ie. The bottom half of the phone can be its own stand on any flat surface and I can tilt the top half with the cameras on one side and the top half of the screen on the other at any angle from Horizon to Zenith. I think I can also use my Galaxy Smart watch to preview the shot even if the preview screen on the phone is tilted so far back it can't be seen easily and can trigger the shot without even having to touch and vibrate the phone. Have to google that functionality. [EDIT] Just checked and it works perfectly!!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123780#Comment_122123780

Yep. I can confirm this. We walked down the road to Bray beach at 10:40pm and down behind the bank of stones to get out of the direct rays from the Promenade lights. Straight away you could see a large patch of milky 'mist' over the sea which the uninformed would assume was just that. Mist glowing from moonlight or something. Couldn't see a thing on the bank of stones and could have been sitting on Dog **** for all we knew. However, by about 11pm we were fully dark adapted and now could see every little pebble under us easily and the Milky Mist was quite a bit brighter and we could now see vertical striations in it. Was about to call it a night, happy to be able to say we finally saw an Aurora. Happy that real Aurora photons hit our retina's, but our suspicions confirmed that its great to see but a bit underwhelming and the real WOW must only come from Cameras and Photo's. Couldn't have been more wrong. At 11:05pm we started to see a faint pink patch in the milky mist and at first thought it was our eyes playing tricks on us. Then **** got wild very quickly as the Aurora rapidly intensified. Naked eye was it like the intense coloured photo's people are posting? No. However it was as good or better naked eye than some of the dimmer photo's some people are posting. The milky white areas were replaced with admittedly dim green but Holy **** the Pinks and Reds and Vermillions were plain as day and surprisingly bright to the naked eye. Followed the massive Rays of pink, red and vermillion towards zenith overhead and only then realised that Rays then spread out from the zenith in the other direction all the way to the Western Horizon too!! Hadn't looked behind us towards the promenade lights before then because we didn't want to risk blowing our eyes dark adaptation.

Citizen Six

Was thinking of heading to the Hill of Tara tonight to try catch the lights. Good idea?

aidanodr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123828#Comment_122123828

Yes @cnocbui I have an s20 with Android v13 and in pro mode one selects SPEED as per image below ( goes up as far as 30 and down as far as 1/12000 ).

However you would have to have a tripod for any longish exposure, by hand there would be too much camera shake.

Instead I use my manfroto tripod with my trusty mirrorless ( old ) Fujifilm X-E1

InAtFullBack

Caught these two last night. An amazing show!

Calibos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123993#Comment_122123993

Gonna give this pair a try tonight for long exposure shots. Kicking myself I didn't think of this before heading out last night nor think to google proper camera settings for Aurora for my phone. Hopefully the weather and the Coronal Mass Ejections play ball again tonight so I can put my phone and watch to the test.

aidanodr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122124056#Comment_122124056

Best of luck @Calibos .. look forward to the results here tomorrow maybe

I dont think us on south coast ( carrigaline ) will have much luck later due to good bit of cloud apparently :(

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122123920#Comment_122123920

That Z-Flip sounds the biz and ideal. Has a much better set of cameras than the S10. Smart watch trigger is a good idea. I could set my S10 to sound trigger but was too busy to dig for that setting. I can also pair my phone to my camera via an ad-hoc wifi network and control many functions like shutter release, but didn't really need to.

cnocbui

Have you seen her dressed in blue?
See the sky in front of you…