On Friday and Saturday night, sky watchers from many locations in Poland had the opportunity to admire beautifully, extended, multicoloured auroras. This is a rarity in our latitudes.

10/11 May aurora

The sky literally lit up with shades of red, purple and green. The auroras were the result of solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that reached our planet a few days after previous flares on the Sun. The indices related to the solar activity reached huge values: the planetary Kp index, which tells us about the extent of the aurora, had a value of 9, which corresponds to a category of G5 geomagnetic storm, i.e. extremely strong and rarely observed. The last time such a geomagnetic storm occurred was in 2003.

However, similar phenomena are likely to intensify over the coming months or even years. This is related to the fact that the Sun is just now entering the period of its maximum activity during its 11-year solar activity cycle. And at this moment, the extremely strong geomagnetic storm continues, and auroras may still occur today, Sunday 12 May, as further X-class solar flares have been registered on the Sun in the meantime.

Aurora over Kraków

Aurora borealis over Krakow photographed by the AllSky camera at the roof of our Observatory.

More aurora photos from Kraków

Aurora over Mount Suhora Observatory

Aurora over Gorce Mountains photographed by the AllSky camera of the ALPS network at the Mount Suhora Observatory.

Link to the original video with aurora