Rare aurora bewitches NSW sky gazers, and could stage encore tonight
The phenomenon is rarely visible far from the poles, but the dancing light bewitched sky gazers as far north as Byron Bay as photographers snapped the pink glow off Sydney's beaches and across NSW from Cooma to Tamworth.
'We were cheering, everybody was 'Oh my god-ing',' said aurora enthusiast David Findlay, who's chased auroras across Tasmania and Antarctica. He watched the sky last night with about 300 spectators from Gerroa in the Illawarra.
Auroras are normally faint in NSW and show up better in photos, but on Sunday the geomagnetic storm was severe enough to spark vivid flashes visible to the naked eye that burned brightly for about 15 minutes, Findlay said.
'Interspersed with these brilliant magenta colours were these very, very bright beams of orange,' he said. 'This is actually the first time I've seen intense orange ... it was the orange aurora!'
There's another chance to catch the spectral spectacular on Monday night as the solar storm rages on.
'The activity may continue into tonight, so aurora watchers should be prepared,' said a co-director of Swinburne University of Technology's Space Technology and Industry Institute, Dr Rebecca Allen.
'Auroras are caused when our sun ejects energetic particles as 'storms'. These particles collide with our magnetic field and smash into the atmosphere near the poles,' Allen said, which is why the phenomenon is normally seen close to the Arctic and Antarctic.
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