After the long midnight-sun period here in Northern Norway, where it's impossible to see even the brightest stars from end-April - early-August, the autumn always comes as a relief to me when the first stars finally become visible again as the skies gradually get darker for each night.
Last night's aurora display was in fact so strong that, although familiar constellations such as Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper/The Plough are still only to be made out very faintly on the blue night sky, the auroras shimmered and danced in an explosion of colours.
This is what the sky looked like close to midnight just outside Tromsø in Northern Norway.
As Spaceweather report, "the twilight display was sparked by a pair of CME impacts on August 27th. As Earth passed through the wake of the storm clouds, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) around Earth tipped south. This opened a crack in our planet's magnetosphere; solar wind poured in to fuel a light show that lasted for nearly three days and nights".
The aurora-season has begun!
