Northern Lights over London

Last weekend was amazing! I’ve seen the Northern Lights or the aurora quite a few times, but to see them in London was just incredible.

The source of the light show is the sun, which spues out high energy particles. If these head in our direction, the Earth’s magnetic field funnels them towards the poles. Here these particles crash into the atmosphere, and as they hit oxygen it glows green and nitrogen red.

The sun is currently in a sunspot maxima, and if you look (carefully, with a solar filter) you can see many large ones:

Usually this happens well north of the UK, sometimes reaching Scotland, but on Friday it went all the way to the south coast - or maybe further!

My wife and I ran to the local park to gaze into the sky and take some photos

That evening there was evening a crescent moon with clear Earth shine.

What an amazing evening!