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by mattbee 767 days ago
Since we're all scientists here, I'll report a negative from central York. My wife and I stood up in the attic looking out of the Velux for 10 minutes. It was dark, clear and we were could see from NE-ish to SE-ish. We couldn't really call it. A very subtle effect on a 10s smartphone exposure, mayyybe? I will compare with tonight.

We once rented a beautiful, slightly remote house on a beach outside Reykjavik and one night, the sky danced for us. So I don't feel hard done-by.

2 comments

Interesting, maybe it depends on when you were looking? Also central York and we popped outside just after half eleven and the aurora was very visible to the naked eye, not in full multicolour but very clearly not a cloud, quite thick and radiating out from a centre in the sky almost all the way down to the horizon. We have a reasonably dark place we can look from near us (and where we got some photos on a smartphone camera that show a sky full of vivid purples and greens) but I could see it clearly enough from right outside our house even with the bright led streetlights all around.

After 20 minutes it faded from view almost entirely and we went inside. I have no idea if it came back or what it was like beforehand, maybe we got very lucky or maybe it came and went through the night?

I must have caught a calmer moment at midnight then! I'm in Murton so there's not a lot of light looking away from town.
I’m 5 miles to the east ! (Dunnington) and was gutted to hear this morning that I’d missed an amazing display here last night. Many people in the village saw the aurora in varied colours - greens, purples, pinks. Incredible photos… it sounds like it was just before midnight that it really kicked off.