24/03/2026
During the solar storms of May 2024, the UK and many other countries saw huge and colourful displays of the Aurora Borealis/ Northern lights. I was in Tenerife at the time, so I felt sure that I wouldn't see any aurora, being at a much lower latitude (28 deg North) than at home in the UK (51 deg North.)
There were a series of powerful geomagnetic storms with extreme solar flares that occurred around 10th May 2024. These solar storms were the most powerful to hit Earth since March 1989 and produced aurorae at far lower latitudes than usual, evidenced here at the left of this panorama.
At the time I didn't notice the red glow, but when I saw the images, it became clear that I had captured the aurora as well as the milky way.
I took these images on the morning of 11th May 2024 from Minas de San Jose, Teide National Park, Tenerife. This beautiful landscape of sand and volcanic pumice, with a backdrop of the mighty mount teide and pristine dark skies, has been a shooting location for many film and TV productions, including:- Clash of the titans, Fast and furious, One Million years BC, Doctor Who and Rambo.
It's taken me a while to get around to processing this, I'm really pleased with the result. Hope you like it...
Aurora Borealis far left, green and red airglow centre, Milky Way core right, rho ophiuchi far right (please see my previous post for a closer look...)
Sky - 5 x 120 seconds tracked exposures
Foreground - 5 x untracked exposures
Ioptron skyguider pro
Irix 15mm
Pentax K1
Innorel ST344C tripod
Tracked, Pano, Blend
Processed in Lightroom and Photoshop.
