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 have a small list of some of the sites we've used, ready for the coming season. It's hard to believe some of the cameras might be starting up again as early as next month!

Good stuff Gloria. Yes, I can't believe how quickly the summer has gone so far - August seemed an age away when they took Abisko down. I've just had an email from Discover the World advertising short breaks to Abisko this winter. I'm trying not to look at the mo, as I bet it is really pricey.

I was popping in to say that the aurora Australis is doing it's thing on the south pole camera at the mo - curtain lights, but fairly unspectacular.

While I think of it, whoever starts the next thread should use some of the best shots from this year in the OP to tempt people in. That spectacular show at Abisko in the spring with the purple and red lights springs to mind.

Some great aurora and general astronomy photos on the Guardian's website for the astronomy photographer of the year 2015 competition. They are all lovely - I particularly like the photo with a reflection of the Milky Way in a salt flat in Bolivia.

Blimey ~ all those are good, I'd hate to pick a winner!
Good idea about posting some pictures in the thread for the coming aurora season ~ I think there was a spectacular session around the 19th/20th December as well.

I'm off for a week from tomorrow, staying on the coast of North Wales. I think it's fairly dark where we're staying so I keep hoping that the Sun will have a really good outburst while we're there (Spaceweather were talking about a really fast growing sunspot on Monday so it would be nice if it chose its moment for when we're away!) I know it's not that often we get to see Aurora in this country but just for once, I'd like to take real pictures and not have to rely on webcams/websites!

Good luck with next week's aurora-watching Gloria! Please post pics if you manage to catch anything.

Ahoy Gloria!

AuroraWatch UK amber alert, 2015-07-13 19:29:01UT.
Detected by AuroraWatchNet. Lancaster #1, England.

Good evening! Hope you get lucky Gloria - I'm also hoping for my North Norfolk holiday end of next week.

Tasmanian camera showing some aurora this evening - perhaps this heralds a decent show in line with the Spaceweather and AuroraWatch alerts.

And now for the picture...

And again

Evening all,
I got the (rather short-lived) AuroraWatch alert last week but absolutely nothing to be seen in North Wales. According to spaceweather, there's almost no solar activity at the moment so hope it picks up for Pseudo and for when the Aurora season starts again in a few weeks, otherwise it's going to be all a bit glum and

Pretty aurora Australis at the south pole webcam just now.

And again...

Looking pretty at the South Pole at the moment.
Spaceweather says there's a good chance of seeing Aurora today and there's also a mahoosive sunspot facing earth as well which might produce something.

Ha! I was just popping in to post a very similar picture, assuming that it was just me talking to myself again. It is very good to see you in here, Gloria!

The aurora Australis is in full swing on the south pole camera right now. Should we be keeping a closer eye on things this weekend because of the Spaceweather forecast/sun spot activity?

Possible pinkish tinge at the South Pole?
I usually have a look at the Spaceweather forecast/Aurora webcams most days, DustBunny, just to see if anything big has happened. Things seem to have calmed down for now but they think it could change.
I can't wait for the Aurora season to start again for the Northern Hemisphere ~ hopefully the sun will throw some decent explosions towards us so there's something decent to see!

I'm glad it's not just me half-wishing August would hurry up so the Abisko camera is up again. There were some terrific displays of the iights last autumn. I really wish some of the Aurora cameras were fixed too - I'm missing the original shot of the snowy carpark in Porjus, as it was never the same (crisp) after they repositioned the camera.

There are a lot of webcams down/need fixing at the moment
In the meantime, that mahoosive sunspot ~ the core of it is now 3x the size of earth!

Wow! We should be in for some spectacular aurora soon. I wonder if they'll come far enough south to be seen here?

Nothing produced yet ~ knowing our luck, it'll explode when it's not facing our way!

Lovely soft aurora in Antarctica at the mo.

G3 storm alert for now, nice picture from NZ

Damn! I'm away with patchy wifi. If you see anything good, can you screenshot & post Gloria?