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Aurora visible in Goulburn

Nasa

Nasa

Tuesday night delivered a special treat for stargazers.

The Aurora Australis was visible as far north as Goulburn, and possibly beyond.

The aurora, a magnetic storm in the outer atmosphere of Earth, makes vibrant green and pink lights in the sky visible to the naked eye.

David Finlay in Goulburn, New South Wales captured beams of light in the sky amid scattered clouds.

“Aurora visible on camera and to naked eye from Goulburn NSW!” Mr Finlay said on Twitter.

The lights were also visible in Kiama on the south coast of NSW and Matthew Francis, space weather forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, said he’d heard reports from Queensland.

“It’s quite unusual, in most of the moderate events Tasmania is the limit,” he said.

The lights are more often visible in Tasmania and New Zealand, which are closer to the south pole.

Mr Francis said he had never seen the lights in real life: “I don’t live at those latitudes”.

But people at those latitudes were disappointed by cloud and rain which obscured the lightshow. See the scale of the Aurora here.  

The aurora last night was among the strongest and most broadly visible that has occurred this solar cycle, which began January 2009 and goes for 11 years.

“It’s probably the best event we’ve had in the past few years,” Mr Francis said.

“It’s a very fickle thing to know when one of these events will occur.”

The lights were even more apparent in New Zealand, where photographer and astronomer Ian Griffin captured it in a time lapse.

“Oh yes. Oh yes. Aurora alert tonight. I am so disappointed I will have to miss the Bachelor NZ,” Mr Griffin said on Twitter.

The concurrent northern hemisphere aurora borealis was visible in Norway, Iceland and southern parts of the United Kingdom.

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