Armchair aurora watching

[DustBunnyFarmer]

I'm starting this discussion because I was in danger of hijacking the Icelandic volcano thread. I started using the Mila Icelandic webcams to watch the eruption at Holoraun (the Bardabunga webcams), but lately I've seen the aurora borealis quite a few times on the other webcams, particularly the Thingvellir webcam www.livefromiceland.is/webcams/thingvellir/, although the lights can be seen sometimes on the Hekla and Jokulsarlon ones.

Another OP posted a link to the Hotel Ranga aurora cam, which is here: www.hotelranga.is/northern-lights/northern-light-webcam/

I am posting a couple of pics below for comparison to get you started. The first is a lovely aurora shot at Thingvellir from September, then a more blurry one from last night and a normal dark evening shot.

If you can find any other lovely aurora cams please post links (and pics) below. Happy hunting!

I am very envious Bunbaker. Was it a really good show or more of a glimpse? I'd love to hear a description of the rippling/wave effect, as they are often sped up on video footage.

They off as a little bit of white light in the sky, which then developed into an arc of light. They moved really slowly at first. So slowly that you couldn't see the movement, but if you looked away for a few minutes they would be somewhere else in the sky. We were getting cold and started walking back to the hotel when DD looked behind us and shouted for us to look. It was marvelous and looked like net curtains waving about in the breeze. They were white, not green. This stage of the lights only lasted for a few minutes and then they disappeared. I felt so excited to witness this phenomenon.

You need to be a really good photographer with a really good camera to capture them. My fairly expensive digital camera didn't record them at all. However another guest at the hotel emailed me his best shot and they appeared very green on his image.

The whole holiday was an amazing experience as we did a lot of snowy activities as well. It has whetted our appetite to go somewhere else in the arctic circle.

I'd be interested to know where you went & who you tracelled with (travel firm) Bun, as my fixation with the lights has stimulated discussion here about going iin February half term.

This is the holiday we did. The Trip Advisor reviews were pretty accurate. It was clear that the Davvi responded well to constructive criticism because some of the niggles that previous visitors had highlighted had been addressed - for example hot drinks at meal times and being notified about northern lights sightings.

I still have the text on my phone telling me to go outside to see the lights, and will keep it as a "souvenir".

I would say the only major negative criticism is that the vegetarian food is awful, and if you are vegan I would take three days worth of food with you. Apparently the head chef was Bulgarian and just didn't have a clue about vegetarian food. It was always the previous days overcooked vegetables dressed up as a bake, gratin or pie. DD lived on breakfast and pringles.

The activities were well organised, and although we were there for only three nights we packed a lot in. It really was an amazing holiday.

I would agree that February half term is a good time to go:

a) You get 8 hours of daylight
b) It isn't as cold - we had -7 as opposed to -37 at Christmas
c) The place isn't overrun with small children on Santa Claus trips

In fact, we expected it to be busier as it was half term.

We were lucky because there was no moon, which apparently is better for spotting the aurora.

That looks lovely, Bunbaker
Abisko has just burst into life.

And at Porjus1.

Last night at Abisko

Will you be looking at the southern hemisphere ones in the summer DustBunny?

Bunbaker ~ I think there was talk a few weeks ago of doing a Southern Hemisphere one as well.
There are some hints of rainbow coloured Aurora at Abisko at the moment.

We started looking into southern hemisphere webcams with a view to keeping going year round, Bun. The various Antarctic survey sites have webcams, but they are not really skycams. If you can find any, do let us know. I'm not sure where the maximum range is, as that would help us to target webcams in specific countries.

Just done a quick 'Google' and found the 'Aurora Service' that we use have 1 or 2 Southern Hemisphere webcams as well ~ here.

Yay! That's a start made on our summer links.

Found this article about colour of the lights with the naked eye vs camera m.space.com/23707-only-photos-reveal-aurora-true-color.html

What an excellent article, Pseudo! Thank you for finding it (and looking at the photographers website, he has lots more amazing space/scenery photos.)

Unfortunately one of the Southern Hemisphere webcams (the Hobart one) seems to be another one that's 'stuck' but the one underneath (near Christchurch) seems OK (stars are coming out at the moment.) Still, there's time to find more!

For us in the Northern Hemisphere, Abisko seems to have had a good night! It went from absolutely nothing but stars to this in the next photo.

Slight hint of purple here!

And aurora, stars and sunrise.

Correction ~ the webcam isn't Hobart, it's Cressy in Tasmania. And someone seems to have given it some 'agressive maintenance' (a kick) as it has something different now. From the scene at the moment though (lots of blue/white lines) I think it still needs some tweaking!

Thank you for that article link Badger. The lights described by the writer is exactly how we saw them - grey/white curtains rippling in the breeze. The camera images showed them as being bright green.

Looking at last night's footage, it seems the X2 event that Badger mentioned a couple of days ago hit our atmosphere overnight.

Lovely palette at sunset this evening - a hint of aurora too.

DustBunny ~ there have been some really nice Aurora and sunsets the last few evenings.
It looks very starry again at Abisko tonight but caught this rainbow aurora from a few minutes ago.

KP6 Storm NOW.

Try looking for some Aurora here (New Zealand/Tasmania) Pseudo.
I hope this produces something good for the Northern Hemisphere later!

KP8 G4 storm predicted. Seriously if you're Midlands up look up tonight!

I'm thinking of doing that, Pseudo!

(I've also done a UK Aurora watch thread here.)