Aurora lights up night sky length of country
Stargazers in different parts of the country had a rare treat at the weekend, spotting the Aurora Australis lighting up the night sky on two consecutive nights.
The Southern Lights were spotted from Auckland, Canterbury and the Otago Peninsula on Saturday. They then made an appearance in Wellington on Sunday, and were again spied in the sky over Canterbury.
Natalie Crowther, who photographed the Aurora on Sunday, said she had seen so many cars on the Port Hills, near Christchurch.
‘‘Fog covered Lake Ellesmere so we decided to go up the hill. There were about 200 cars that went through within three hours,’’ she said.
In Wellington, Jonathan Usher was also armed with a camera to capture the light display, and managed to snap the Aurora both nights of the weekend.
‘‘The scene was quite an amazing one,’’ he said.
It was Dave Watson’s first time taking his nine-year-old daughter star-gazing on Saturday, and the pair weren’t disappointed.
They saw the glow from Rakaia Huts, southwest of Christchurch.
Watson said the pair stood and watched in wonder at the Aurora’s ‘‘big pointy streaks’’.
Photographer Larryn Rae spotted the lights in Auckland. He’d previously photographed the Aurora, but said Saturday night’s made ‘‘the last one look like play school’’.
What made the Aurora particularly unusual was its light beams, which Rae didn’t believe were normally spotted from Auckland.
Otago Museum director Dr Ian Griffin captured photos of the Aurora from Cape Saunders on the Otago Peninsula. He said the rainbow colours were a ‘‘truly gorgeous display’’. It was caused by a geomagnetic storm – the result of a large hole in the sun’s surface.
Griffin said Saturday night’s display was impressive because of a phenomenon known as coronal mass ejection. ‘‘The sun basically blasts off some material and it struck the earth, or it impacted the earth’s magnetic field, and that’s what gave life to last night’s beautiful Aurora and, certainly, it was pretty stunning last night.