[lagerstarfish]

I've seen them

Aviemore, March '91. I thought it was some car headlights shining into the sky at first. Greenish beams scanning from L to R with a constant green tinge just above the horizon.

Saw them again whilst in The 'Gorms in early '94, but very faint

[SA Chris]

Does anyone have any experience of viewing them?

In Glencoe in the freakishly cold winter of '81/'82. Low budget Scottish black & white version though - no colours.

Yeah, that's what we saw last night. Hiked up Clach na beinn (gaelic for "hill that looks like a wart" probably). Got to the top about 11:30 and it was quite cloudy to the North, so we just took pics of the city lights stars etc, then about 1 pm some parallel white lines appeared quite high above Aberdeen and waved around for about 10 minutes before disappearing. Still pretty cool and worth the effort as it was an amazing night. Could do with some kip now though!

Adam if you fancy driving up to Aberdeen for a bouldering session at Transition tomorrow night give us a shout.

[SA Chris]

That would be 1 am obv.

Any experts got a view on there being anything worthwhile later in the week? Thursday is looking clear.

[nik at work]

I saw them in Sheffield!! in about '97/8. Well I say I saw them, I saw something that looked exactly the same as all the picutres/vidoes I've seen of the Aurora, it may well have been some other wonder of the natural world

Anyway it was in Sheffield (Crookes to be precise) and I just luckily went outside for some random reason and glanced up. Didn't last long but was very clear. Surely others here must have lived in Sheffield at the time and seen it, I have a notional idea that it might have been mentioned in the local press.

[nik at work]

A quick search brings up this thread:
http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-464594.html
Which appears to confirm my viewing, although my dates might have been a year or so out.

[Will Hunt]

Tick. Reykjavik 2005 I think 

[LB1782]

The CME (big eruption from the Sun) hit at about 15:00 today.
I'd say there was a pretty good chance of geomagnetic storms overnight.
Whether that will translate into there being aurorae to see at a given location,  I can't say.

[SA Chris]

Sadly forecast tonight is for overcast and rainy up here. I've got camera gear with me though, and will sack of wall session and head to a beach away from light pollution if there is any chance of it clearing. Apparently there was some visible from Deeside yesterday when the clouds cleared briefly last night. Any idea how long it will last?

[LB1782]

Any idea how long it will last?

Typically a geomagnetic storm might last 2-10 hours with the aurorae fluctuating in brightness within that.  Unfortunately, yesterday's CME triggered activity has been and gone.  The word from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Centre is that the, "aurora watch is cancelled for all but the highest latitudes around the Arctic Circle".

Here (http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/gif/pmapN.gif) is an image that is updated regularly.  The orange oval gives a pretty good indication of the likely extent of the aurora.  There is currently a bit of activity below 60deg lat over Canada. I wouldn't bet on much happening tonight at Aberdeen-like latitudes.

There may well be another CME in the next few days and they'll almost certainly become more frequent as we move towards solar maximum.

[SA Chris]

Nice one. Keep watching the skies!

[tomtom]

Any idea how long it will last?

Typically a geomagnetic storm might last 2-10 hours with the aurorae fluctuating in brightness within that.  Unfortunately, yesterday's CME triggered activity has been and gone.  The word from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Centre is that the, "aurora watch is cancelled for all but the highest latitudes around the Arctic Circle".

Here (http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/gif/pmapN.gif) is an image that is updated regularly.  The orange oval gives a pretty good indication of the likely extent of the aurora.  There is currently a bit of activity below 60deg lat over Canada. I wouldn't bet on much happening tonight at Aberdeen-like latitudes.

There may well be another CME in the next few days and they'll almost certainly become more frequent as we move towards solar maximum.

Thats a great post. Thanks.

But, you have missed an excellent opportunity to Sandbag Chris and get him to spend a cold night out in a tent looking for something that wasnt going to be there

[SA Chris]

It's Ok, I could have probably trapped a couple of young haggis as they are largely nocturnal.

[SA Chris]

Probably the best shot we got last week, see greenish bit bottom left, which was barely visible.

[nicboarder]

Can see it in Northumberland at Kielder observatory apparently, they do Aurora evenings

http://www.kielderobservatory.org/

[LB1782]

Another CME erupted a day or so ago. May hit us at a glancing angle. The interplanetary magnetic field is also favourable (pointing southward) for a magnetic storm.

Looks like there may well be too much cloud for decent aurorae over northern Scotland tonight though.

[danm]

Saw them driving up to Glencoe about 5 winters back. Stopped on Rannoch Moor briefly. It looked like wavy green fabric, pretty awesome.

[slackline]

Big solar storm too late for last night, but there may be some to light up the sky further north tonight.

[tomtom]

Big solar storm too late for last night, but there may be some to light up the sky further north tonight.

6am to 10am today apparently, ther  may  e  ome dis up ion to dig  al c mm nicati ns

[SA Chris]

(almost) full moon though

Our friendly local astrophysicist gave me a heads up last night, but moon didn't help, plus we are the wrong side of Aberdeen so suffer with light pollution. Maybe tonight?

[Oldmanmatt]

Supposed to affect us until Friday eve. Clear in Amsterdam today, so hopeful, if a little far south...

[SA Chris]

I'm in Cardiff Fri and Sat night so doubt I will see much.

[LB1782]

The British Geological Survey have issued an aurora alert (http://t.co/8hx5KQpr) with their twitter feed (https://twitter.com/#!/BGSspaceWeather) reckoning that the best chance will be tonight (Thursday).  Looks like it'll be pretty cloudy here in Edinburgh but with patchy clouds around Aberdeen.

The latest auroral oval is looking pretty far north and fairly puny just now.  This should change as the storm loads energy into  the Earth's magnetic field over the next few hours.

@SA Chris the BGS also do a 'sign up for alerts' service.  They might be more communicative than the aurorawatch lot.

[LB1782]

There is a satellite called ACE that is sitting upstream of us.  It is not sampling the magnetic field from well inside the big explosion.  At the moment, the field up in space is not pointing in a direction that is likely to give us a major geomagnetic storm.

Upstream conditions might change though.

Someone has built a twitter sourced aurora visibility map:

If you tweet #aurora,1st half of postcode, & rate visibility/10, you will contribute to the live map at http://t.co/oqAbFgue

[battery]

was very lucky to be in Shetland over the weekend with work and even more lucky to go to Fair Isle, just when I thought I couldn't get any luckier, 2 nights of spectacular showings, green glowing skies, despite the bright moon 

[Eddies]

I was on a flight over th pole to Vancouver a few years back. Abrilliant aurora was visible out of the right hand side of the plane... I was sat on the left. I tried to get to a R/H window but it was mayhem, I went back to my seat and watched Harry Potter... Again