Celestial Dance Party – November 2023
It’s Sunday 5th November 2023. There had been an aurora display the night before from a glancing blow of a coronal mass ejection (CME) in the earth’s magnetic field. Even better was expected to come as a direct hit of another CME was possible. It’s midday on Sunday, the CME has hit and the solar data spikes indicating something special was going to occur. I sent out an alert on my Instagram stories letting people know to get out if they can this evening with their cameras it was not something they were going to want to miss. I had also created a map of Ireland with all kinds of possible locations people would be able to observe and capture the aurora at. Moments like this don’t come around very often. Good clear spells were expected, the solar data was favourable and the moon wasn’t set to rise until 23:08. The moon is a bad natural source of light pollution that can fade out the intensity of aurora displays. This all sounded prime for an epic night of aurora displays. So how did it go then?
I told people I would be going to Red Island, Skerries after 6pm and anybody is welcome to join me. I had to bring two passengers in my car as I promised them I would bring them to make their dreams come true – they had never seen the aurora before. Whilst I was delayed as a result of this, tons of people had already arrived at Skerries and the aurora was visible as soon as nightfall. This was a sign it was going to be a special night. In fact, I missed this completely altogether but people had managed to observe and capture a very rare sighting (in Ireland that is) of what’s called STEVE, standing for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. It lasts for a short period of time and is a purple ribbon, visible usually with auroras. It comprises of a fast-moving stream of very hot particles. It is a relatively new discovery and research is still ongoing as to what causes its appearance. It is related to but isn’t the aurora. I was envious of those that got to capture this very rare sighting.
So I arrived over an hour later than I had intended at Skerries. Almost all the parking spaces on Red Island were taken, it was ridiculous but also wonderful to see so many had read my stories and taken them seriously as I did not want people to miss out on this celestial beauty. The aurora was still visible as a hazy red and green glow on the horizon when we arrived but it took a while for it to explode into action with bright pillars. It took 3 hours of waiting in the cold westerly breeze before it took off again to magnificent levels but so worth it. I am well used to this having observed other auroras before and photography in general building my patience but the others were only learning and we had nearly gone off heading home as my passengers were worried about getting home. However, I told them to relax and enjoy, there is no need to be worried. As some people left early, more arrived. Patience is a virtue!
10pm arrived and the sky was going to explode into colour soon. My DSLR was on a tripod capturing an hour’s worth of captures into a time lapse. I took selfies of various people helping them get the best possible photo they can.
Then it was time to go home after 11pm as the show had faded a lot and it was getting late. Feet and hands were frozen. The dreams were made come true of many people with a night to remember fondly. I received so many thank you messages on Instagram that I alerted about the event in advance. I was overwhelmed and found it so heartwarming knowing people’s dreams came true because of my actions. It makes me wonder how different society would be if we weren’t so accustomed to living in towns and cities under tons of light pollution. Our natural world is a wonderful thing.
Behind the scenes of some of the photographers at Red Island, Skerries on 5th November 2023 with the aurora ongoing in the background. Credit: Jason Griffin.
The very next day my aurora time lapse was featured on RTÉ News and wasn’t the first time this autumn I have been featured in the media for capturing the aurora.
If you want to be alerted about future possible auroral displays, follow me on my Instagram @sryanbruen and check out my stories. As we near solar maximum in either 2024 or 2025, we have lots more chances of auroras to come!
