Aurora Hunting
Speak to almost anybody about the Aurora Borealis (Northern
Lights) and they will tell you that it is one of their dreams to see them. I am of course one of those people; probably
even more so because I’m such a fan of astronomy. In 1996, my Mum saw an advert in a newspaper
about Aurora Flights. Of course we
booked straight away! On these flights all of the cabin lights are turned off,
and if air traffic allows, so are the lights on the wings of the aeroplane. This gives you a view of the night sky that
you are unlike to have experienced anywhere before. So, in November that year, a few members of
my family and I set out to Liverpool Airport and with much excitement boarded
the flight. Unfortunately, we were one of only a very small number of flights that
year which hadn’t seen a thing. No aurora whatsoever. However, getting the
opportunity to see the sky in so much detail was something I have never
forgotten.
Learning all about how the aurora form during my Astronomy
GCSE course made me even more desperate to see it. Mum and I keep a close eye on the aurora
alerts on Twitter, and anytime there is a chance of seeing the aurora at lower
latitudes, we get in the car and drive as far North as we can in order to try
and see something. To date we have never
succeeded. So when my boyfriend Mark saw a tweet from Pete Lawrence (Sky at
Night presenter) last year advertising an additional aurora flight from
Manchester Airport, we jumped at the chance!
I turned 40 at the beginning of this year, so we decided that this would
be my birthday present. What an incredible gift! Mum also decided to come and give it another
try. So, on 12th March we set off to Manchester ready for another
aurora hunting adventure.
We arrived at the Radisson Blu Hotel at Manchester airport
nice and early, ready for our pre-flight presentation at 6:45pm and grabbed
front row seats! We had exchanged a few
tweets with Pete Lawrence prior to the day of the flight so we briefly went
over and said hello in person before returning to our seats. The crowd of
people was probably the most varied of any group of people I’ve been in a room
with, testament to the draw of the aurora. While we waited for the presentation
to begin, there were several slides showing frequently asked questions about
the aurora flights. They first began in
1997 and were initially for viewing the comet Halle-Bopp. Once the comet had gone, the company realised
they could continue to fly passengers up to see other astronomical phenomenon,
such as the aurora. We would be flying
in either in an Airbus 320/321, Boeing 737 or Embracer. During the flight we would reach an altitude
of 34,000 - 40,000 feet. There were also
slides with a brief biography of the main astronomers who are involved with
these flights. This included Pete Lawrence, Nigel Bradbury and Paul Money. Before the presentation began we had the
opportunity to buy 2 books, one about the Aurora by Pete Lawrence, and one by
Paul Money which shows a month by month guide to what is visible in the sky
throughout 2013. There was a special offer if we bought the 2 together, an
offer too good to refuse! Scheduled take off was at 21:30 but before we went
across to the terminal building to check in, we had our 1 hour presentation.
Before the presentation started, the Captain of the aurora
flight popped into to say hello and have a few words with us. His name was
Captain Mainwaring, so of course there were the usual jokes relating to Dad’s
Army - that poor man must be so sick of hearing the words, “Don’t panic!” Then
the presentation began with a half hour talk by the astronomer Nigel Bradbury. He started by taking us on an astronomical
journey; from ancient stone circles to space flight, from the Solar System out
to the Milky Way, out to the Local Group, and then the Hubble Deep Field and
Ultra Deep Field. Each was accompanied by stunning photos. He showed the flight path we would taking
later that night, a flight that took us North until we reached “Station” - the
area around which we would fly in an oval shape that went from the Shetland
Isles across to the Faroe Islands (which lie approximately half way between
Iceland and Norway) and back again. He
then went on to show us the constellations that we were likely to see out of
each side of the aeroplane window during the flight. He told us that the cabin lights would be
switched off about 20 minutes before we reached station to allow our eyes to
have become fully dark adapted by the time we get there. He concluded with a list of rules for the
flight. These included no flash photography or checking LCD display screens on
digital cameras. He explained that most
compact cameras would not capture the aurora so if you had brought one of
those, the best thing you could do was to leave it in your bag, sit back and
enjoy the flight and leave the photography to the experts who would post the
photos on the website after the flight.
We were asked if we would regularly rotate in our seats to allow
everybody an equal chance of seeing out of the window. Finally, we were told that the toilets would
be out of bounds during the time we were in darkness, so we were advised to use
the airport toilets before boarding!
The second talk was by Pete Lawrence and was titled “In
Search of the Northern Lights - An Illustrated Talk”. During this presentation, he explained the
mechanism by which the aurora is formed.
In very simple terms, the sun constantly emits streams of charged
particles; this is called the solar wind.
These particles interact with the magnetic field which surrounds the
Earth. If the conditions are right,
these particles will then be streamed along the magnetic field lines and
directed towards the Northern and Southern Polar Regions. Once they reach
Earth’s thermosphere, they “excite” the gas atoms which are present there and
this causes the gases to glow. Oxygen
will glow orange or green, whereas nitrogen will glow blue or white. This is similar to how a neon or argon tube
light works. The auroral arch is present
pretty much at all times around the poles, but at times of increased solar
activity, the aurora will be more intense and will reach lower latitudes. He then went on to explain the different
kinds of aurora; diffuse and discrete. The
aurora is not restricted to the Northern Polar regions; the Aurora Australis is
just as prevalent, but those regions do not fall over as much populated land
mass as the Northern Polar Regions, hence why the “Northern Lights” are more
frequently reported and photographed.
Finally, Pete went on to give us our forecast for the flight. He told us
that the aurora forecast can be found at www.spaceweather.com
- our forecast for the flight was moderate.
However, he went on to explain that they can never really give us any
certainty. 50:50 is about the best odds they can predict before any of these
flights.
So, it was finally time to go and check in. The excitement
as we filtered out of the conference room was palpable! Check in was smooth and
before we knew it we had boarded our Boeing 737. Once we had taken off we were served a light
snack and before we knew it, it was time for the cabin lights to be turned
off. We went through a few checks to
ensure that anybody who was using a camera had turned the LCD display and the
flash off, as any light would spoil the night vision for everybody else. All three of us had covered our LCDs with red
acetate sheets, but just to be sure we didn’t ruin ours or anybody else’s night
adaptation we switched our screens off. Even before our eyes had time to adapt
to the dark the view from the window was incredible! Nigel was sitting on the left side of the
cabin, Pete on the right, and they took it in turns to give us a running
commentary of what we could see out of each window. As there were three of us sitting together we
took it in turns to sit by the window and look out at the constellations. We
had been advised to bring a small mirror and this was really useful for looking
at parts of the sky that were obscured by the cabin walls - after all, aeroplanes
are not known for their large windows!
There was some military air traffic in the area so it was a while before
the lights on the aircraft wing were turned off. Once they had been turned off,
the sky looked beyond stunning; we were effectively floating through space in a
giant tube, with no source of light pollution whatsoever. It was better than I
had remembered it from my previous aurora hunting flight! I was having trouble getting good focus with
my binoculars so I put them away and just enjoyed the view with my eyes. Because of the movement of the aeroplane, it
was difficult to get a good photograph of the constellations, and this was made
especially difficult by the fact that I couldn’t review what photos I had
taken. Because of this I wasn’t able to
test how well focused my camera was, so I didn’t know whether I would get any
decent photos of the aurora should we be treated to a display later.
About half an hour after the cabin lights had been dimmed we
reached station. We could just make out the lights on the Norwegian coast, some
200 miles away from our window. Nigel
was speaking about what could be seen from the left hand side of the aircraft.
He said, “Out of over 200 flights we have only had about 8 where we didn’t see
any auroral activity at all, and of course tonight could be one of those
nights.... However, it isn’t going to be because we have an auroral arch
visible out towards the North!” The atmosphere suddenly shifted from one of
anticipation to one of pure electricity! Everybody on the left hand side of the
plane was clamouring for window space. For us on the other side of the cabin,
we could just make out a grey coloured mist, which could be seen more clearly
if we used our mirror. The grey coloured
auroral arch covered a huge area and when we caught glimpses of it through the
other windows, it seemed to light up the sky on that side of the
aeroplane. Before too long we turned and
we got a chance to see it for ourselves! The aurora was like grey/green
ribbons, and with averted vision they looked brighter. Certain areas would suddenly brighten, and
then the brighter area would appear to travel along like a shimmering pattern
along the ribbons. I tried so hard to
get some photos, but I found that I was becoming so engrossed in getting my
camera settings correct that it was spoiling my enjoyment, so I just decided to
put the camera down and enjoy my turn at the window. We probably had four good passes with the
aurora on our side of the plane, so once we had divided our time in the window
seat between the three of us, it didn’t feel like very long to actually watch
it at any one time. If we squashed up, 2
of us could see out of the window at once; it’s a good job we all knew each
other well! Mum and Mark also had a go
at taking some photographs during their time in the window seat. The period of time when the aurora was most
active was unfortunately when the aeroplane was facing the wrong way for
us. But there was no doubt that we had
seen the aurora, and it was every bit as magical as I expected it to be. Having wanted to see this all of my life, I
actually felt quite emotional when I finally did! The thing that surprised us
all was that with the naked eye the aurora was more of a grey/green than the
bright green colour we are so used to seeing on photographs. We are bombarded
with amazing images of the aurora on a daily basis, so I for one expected to
see it like that. However, camera sensors are far more sensitive than the naked
eye, so those photographs we are so used to seeing were giving us unrealistic
expectations. Cameras also often pick up
the purple tones that our eyes just can’t see. Throughout the time we were
flying in a loop, Nigel and Pete continued with their commentary. The view out of the window when the aurora
was on our side was quite something, but I’ll openly admit that I was no long
looking at the stars - I just wanted to drink in as much of the aurora as I
possibly could in the limited time we had.
As we finally turned to fly south again, I felt sad. I
didn’t want to leave behind the beautiful scene. But as we flew away, we could still see the
aurora off the right hand wing, so I tried again to get a couple of
photographs. Given the lack of any way to review my photographs, I wasn’t
expecting them to come out at all, so I had a couple of tries then went back to
just enjoying looking at it, once again taking it in turns to look out of the
window.
Before long it was time for the cabin lights to be switched
back on, but I still couldn’t help but look out of the window. We landed back at Manchester Airport at
1am. As soon as we had landed we had our
mobile phones switched on and began tweeting and texting friends to tell them
about our amazing experience! We got
home around 2am. I noticed that the
clouds had cleared out to the East. I was exhausted but couldn’t resist
dragging the telescope out and having a quick look at Saturn. I never tire of looking at that beautiful
ringed planet, and it’s amazing to think that Saturn also has auroral displays
at its poles. We had a quick look at our
photos, but we were too exhausted to upload them that night. We fell into bed
at about 3am, bone tired, but exhilarated from our aurora hunting adventure. I’ve done two aurora flights now. For our
next adventure I would love to see the aurora in the sky above me with no
constraints from aircraft windows. I want to experience being out in the open,
cold wind in my hair, while the aurora dances above my head...
If you would like to see our photos from our adventures,
here are the links to our Flickr sets:
If you would like more information about aurora flights, and
to look at photos from the experts from previous flights, please visit http://www.auroraflights.co.uk/
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