Excellent Aurora April 17th

After a seriously powerful Aurora only a month ago my thoughts were that it would be unlikely that we would see one again, All week long there has been heightened Auroral activity with the Earth being under the influence of a Coronal Hole HSS (High Speed Wind stream) I was out Wednesday night and caught a minor display at 1130 at Lough Talt on the Sligo-Mayo border and again last night, for what I thought might be another minor display, not driving as far and just to Knock Airport, which is at a very high elevation above the surrounding countryside.

To cut to the chase from starting off as a well defined Auroral ac in the space of 30 seconds just after 12 midnight it erupted into a dazzling display, the camera picked up vivid pink, red, green and violet but to the naked eye is was brilliant white, an absolutely stunning sight, I could have gone to some place more interesting had I known it was going to be this good, but that's the game of cat and mouse when it comes to chasing it.

Setting Venus far left

Start of the display with rays coming from the left then the full arc erupted from both sides with flaming rays high almost into Polaris spanning the whole northerly horizon at least 100 degrees wide

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I'm glad there is no show tonight after 3 days and 9 hours sleep and up at 6 am for work every day

Thanks for reading

Ronan Newman
Chairman
Galway Astronomy Club

Wow Ronan they are fabulous shots I did'nt know there was such a great show

Thanks for sharing the colours care superb

Keith..

Amazing! Thanks for sharing.
I think most looking in on this web site will understand re the lack of sleep.....it is all part of the game

Brilliant display!! Didn't think something of that scale would occur & was clouded out this far south anyway.

Spectacular shots there Ronan, I also saw the kp scale hit storm force last night but it was cloudy, so no hope here.
Looks like it was brighter then the aurora we got in March.

Cracking shots there Ronan, well done! Lots of pink and purple, not too common in aurorae.