In the evening hours of September 7th the shockfront
of a coronal mass ejection, that was launched on September 5th by a filament
eruption, hit earth. Due to a sustained south pointing of the interplanetary
magnetic field, which is essential to trigger an auroral storm, a strong
geomagnetic storm begun. It reach the strength of a G3 storm on a scale
from 1 to 5.
Even with extremly strong deviations of the earth's magnetic field, like they
had been observed during the 2001 April 11th auroral storm, this time the aurora
in Germany appeared as rather weak glow. Only in Scandinavia a breathtaking
auroral displays could been observed, that was able to cast shadows.
The northern parts of the United States and Canada could also whitness nice
red and green auroras.
My own observation was restricted to a very small part of the northwestern horizon
which only seemed to have a very thin cloud cover. The visuall observation consisted
of a faint reddish glow with some white beams appearing from time to time. Unfortunately
the photographic documentation was not able to show these features, because
a thin cloud cover obscured the auroral structures and blend them with brighter
city lights.
The auroral display during the night of September 07./08. came in 3 waves:
1. phase: 19:15 - 20:30 UTC
2. phase: 22:20 - 22:40 UTC (not observed by me)
3. phase: 01:20 - 01:40 UTC (brightest substorm, not observed by me)
Here are my pictures, all taken in Mainz-Bretzenheim (49.98°north, 8.23°east).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|