‘Huge naked-eye beams’: spectacular aurora australis lights up the southern skies

The southern-most points of Australia and New Zealand have been treated to an extraordinary spectacle as unusually colourful aurora australis lights swept across the skies.

Images and video of the event flooded social media on Sunday night. The Aurora Australis Tasmania Facebook page, which counts more than 52,000 members, was a focal point for people to share what they captured.

Speaking to the ABC, the founder of the group, Margaret Sonnemann, said Sunday night’s aurora had “huge naked-eye beams”, which was not always the case, but warned that those chasing the light display should not count on what they saw in the sky matching the photographs seen online.

A strong aurora australis can be predicted using planetary index or Kp numbers, which are a measure of geomagnetic activity that increases on a scale of zero to nine according to geomagnetic strength. Sunday’s aurora came with a Kp number of seven, meaning it could be easily viewed from Tasmania and the southern end of New Zealand’s South Island.

Tasmanian aurora watcher and photographer, Garth Smith said that he didn’t have to wait long to capture the spectacle. “The [Kp] numbers were off the dial during our daytime,” he said. “We knew it was going to happen and were just waiting for it to get dark and for the clouds to disappear, which luckily happened at about the same time.”

He said he was out for less than an hour in total although others wouldn’t have been so lucky, estimating some could have spent six or more hours waiting for a top shot.

Another aurora watcher and photographer, Julie Head of Squeaking Point in north-west Tasmania captured the display at different times during the evening, with one photo managing to include the lights, the sunset and multiple satellites.

Photographers used the hashtag #auroraustralis to post images of the colourful skies on Twitter.