Aurora in Hildesheim

During the last days the Kp index and the southwards component of the interplanetary magnetic field have been pretty strong, but unfortunately the weather wasn't clear. Today it was better in Hildesheim, and shortly after 23:00 I could observe significant activity from Moritzberg and it's Panoramaweg.

It was a little bit sponanuous, as I didn't actually expect good weather conditions, but during the evening more and more photos came in from colleagues seeing northern lights in Braunschweig, so I went outside. Right at the beginning, the effects have been the strongest, so I have probably missed the maximum.

Walking up to the Panoramaweg, there was a good view over the town, and besides some dust there was quite some activity. Comparing from memory, the northern lights were not as intensive as during my first observation back in about 2000, in Kiel; at that time the effects have also been more dynamic. This time was more static, but impressive neverteless.

The photos were taken with the night mode of a Pixel 6a mobile phone, just pointing the phone to the sky by hand.