The Aurora makes an appearence on the 10th January 2026

The Saturday before last the aurora made another appearance in the skies above Norfolk and I wrote the following report for the BAA:-

"On the night of the 10th/11th January we had an aurora warning beginning around 20:00 UT with a strength of 240 nT on the Aurora Watch magnetometer at Sumburgh Head. This then fell back to 190 nT at 21:00 but then increased to 310 nT at 22:00 and 370 nT at 23:00. I went out outside in the garden with my camera at 21:10 UT but there was no evidence of an aurora in the sky at that time. It was a clear night dark night with medium transparency and the last quarter moon wasn’t due to rise until 01:16 UT on the 11th. At the time I was carrying out other deep sky observations.

At 23:20 after 2 more alerts, I thought I would check the sky in the north again and at this time I could see a reasonable red glow with the naked eye. I again started taking pictures and the first image I took at 23:25 (see image below) showed a red weak rayed arc (or possibly rayed band) which wasn’t very homogeneous. It stretched from a base height of about 9 degrees to a maximum height of 37 degrees. In azimuth it ranged from 299 degrees to 57 degrees. 

 

There was a very faint green glow looking north west above the red arc:-

 

No green glow was seen below the red arc (probably due to a thin mist).

From 23:25 the aurora display began dissipate, so I had either missed the peak of the display or it had occurred at this time. Around 23:33 UT there was a noticeable (by eye) weird pale light in the north which was reminiscent of a noctilucent cloud and I was confused as to whether this was part of the aurora or some cloud being somehow lit by the aurora. A picture taken at this time shows the pearly looking whorls of cloud:-

The only reasonable explanation I can think of was that it was mist that was being lit from a nearby light source but it dissipated as the aurora dissipated. At 23:33 the height of the red arc was still 37 degrees.

Looking NW at 23:49 UT when the red arc had mostly vanished it was still possible to see a faint green glow. 

I stopped observing at 23:52 UT."

All text and images © Duncan Hale-Sutton 2026