After being alerted to a major solar eruption from various newsletters and mailing lists, I was quite disappointed with the weather prospects for the following night!

Even though cloud cover was 100%, and it was still raining, I decided to take my digital camera, the serial cable, the laptop computer and a small tripod with me, when I headed off to an evening meeting.

When leaving the building at 10 p.m. the rain had stopped, but it was still clouded over. Inspite of the conditions I drove to my favorite observing location (Oberbildstein), searched for a place with a good northern horizon and waited...

After a little while some stars were visible in the Zenith. I constantly watched the northern horizon but couldn´t make out any glow. So I started some all-sky images with the Nikon fisheye adaptor.

On the 3rd image I noticed a red glow in the northern direction!!

Some minutes later the aurora was plainly visible to the naked eye and I was thrilled to see white and red curtains of light, slowly changing in form and brightness. Sometimes rays of light were visible. During this time I took some images with the camera controlled by the computer.

It didn´t last long... When I could not see the aurora anymore, I decided to do some more full-sky images. I was astonished to see the aurora still visible on this 40sec. exposures...

also check out the images and movies from the following day!