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Post by Martin Mc kenna on Oct 31, 2005 20:30:52 GMT
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Post by Martin Mc kenna on Oct 31, 2005 21:18:31 GMT
Details...
I was out comet hunting as darkness fell and at 18.40 i looked to the west and seen a growing green auroral band 60* long and 10* high, within a short period it grew to 15* in height and several bright and faint vertical rays appeared. Then everything went into outburst, first one then two bright green oval patches developed followed by a giant homogenous band that grew very bright blocking out the stars low in the north.
Then countless sharp bright green rays covered the entire sky from the west to the north east reaching up to the height of Polaris and expanding 140* in azimuth, These rays were broad one minute and pencil thin the next always changing there intensity and morphology as they divided and multiplied at a rapid speed. These were absolutley stunning and blew us away. This activity remained like this for a long time and waxed and waned in intensity 3 for 4 times. We seen curtains and waves of shimmering light however the most amazing thing we saw was a very bright green (with a tinge of red) patch of light at the bottom of the curtains that shot across the northern sky several times across the distant rooftops at an estimated rate of 10 degrees per second!!!! We have never seen this phenomena before..at one time it actually reversed back and shot across from right to left. I cannot find words and descriptions to justify this aurora as i was simply dumbstruck when i saw it. The display is ongoing now as i speak at 21.17. Conor caught many great images using two cameras and succeded in capturing fireworks and a meteor in the same image as the aurora!!!
What a treat..the most amazing aurora i have seen since 2003 and it took us by suprise on Halloween. I will never forget this show!!
Clear skies!
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Post by Neill on Nov 1, 2005 13:26:01 GMT
Was out last night myself from about 9 for a while - still can't align my scope - so used it manually to look at Mars and also to try out my new Moonfish 30mm ultrawide eyepiece which arrived yesterday - FOV is massive 80 degrees - looking forward to trying it out under dark skies at castleward - my light polluted skies from my back yard wasn't a proper test - didn't see any aurora - my location is prob too light polluted
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Post by Martin Mc kenna on Nov 1, 2005 13:54:50 GMT
Last night was a great one for me. I seen the Gegenschein for the 5th night in a row and observed 104 meteors! Most of them Taurids but also some Leonids.
My main goal was observing the spiral galaxy M81 with the naked eye when it was placed at the zenith as well as seeing pink and purple colours in M42 visually through the 16".
It was one heck of a night and my fingers and toes where frozen (very sore) lol.
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Post by Martin Mc kenna on Nov 3, 2005 3:02:06 GMT
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Post by Neill on Nov 3, 2005 9:30:55 GMT
I see that yourself Martin also got 2 images on there was aswell - Atmospherics and NLC's , also Martin Campbell's Milky Way shots and the Castleward image as well
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