Jure Atanackov

BOOM! Good Morning! M2.4 flare on the E limb from a new, incoming active region.

Boom! M1.6 flare from active region 14016. Tiny active region, not so tiny flare. Coronal dimming was observed, mostly S-ward. More soon!

Wow! Why doesn't it do this during total solar eclipses? Spectacular eruptive prominence near the SW limb this afternoon (UTC)! Look at that loop!

BOOM! Extremely long-duration M3.6 flare from active region 3998! X-ray flux was above M1.0 threshold for 1h20min! EUV (131A) imagery suggests a CME was launched, coronal dimming was evident, awaiting coronagraph imagery.

WOW! MASSIVE fast CME emerges from behind the W limb after a very long-duration M3.9 flare. The flare was likely much larger, mostly hidden behind the limb.

BOOM! X2.0 flare from AR 4001! This comes after M4.9 and M1.2 flares earlier in the day.

Why some big mid latitude aurora displays are purple and others red. In auroras close to the summer solstice oxygen reds mixing with nitrogen blues and violets, producing purple aurora. In auroras near winter solstice, the display is in Earth's shadow - no nitrogen blues, therefore no purples.

Two very impulsive M-class flares (M3.3 and M1.4) today from the very rapidly developing active region 4000. They were superimposed on a very long (6 hours and ongoing) surge in X-ray background flux, peaking near C7 and now at C4 level. More shortly!

Yes, 10-11 May 2024 was so special. Fingers crossed we get another G5 (maybe... a stronger one? :)) in this cycle.

Within 10 minutes of the first photo the sky erupted in this! The exposure is actually 2x shorter, had I kept it the same the photo would have been blown out - that's how bright the substorm was!

Beautiful! Yes, we are at a very similar geomagnetic latitude and not far apart in longitude, so the show was pretty similar :) Also the color palette of the 10-11 May 2024 storm is so distinctive, cannot miss it. Great photo!

We who are stranded at central to low mid-latitudes know something special is going on when at 45° MLAT you begin to see distinct greens. This is the quiescent stage between the 1st & 2nd substorm of the 10-11 May 2024 G5 storm. Minutes before the sky absolutely erupted in shadow-casting aurora.

Absolutely insane eruptive prominence today! The CME it produced wasn't bad either. Too bad it's on the far side.

Should we all adopt and use these? Do we already use these? Most are pretty common, but there are some pretty exotic ones here.

*from ...

Locations: #1 - Lignano (Italy) looking SE towards Istria/Kvarner, Croatia, #2 - S-CNTRL Slovenia (Turjak), looking WNW towards NE Italy, #3 - Ljubljana, the sprite was over ~Graz, #3 - W-CNTRL Slovenia (Medvedje Brdo), looking N, the sprite was over S Austria.

Hope you get both soon, red sprite season will open soon (although even winter storms over the Adriatic can be big sprite producers and you are just at the right distance).

Those are beautiful! Hope to see more grom you this season.

Boom! M1.8 from active region 3990. Fairly close to the central meridian and there may have been a (minor) CME. More on this soon.

Boom! Finally some flares: an M1.2 at 2:28 UTC from a new active region on the E limb and another M1.2 at 10:06 UTC from AR 3990. More soon!

Any red sprite hunters around here?

The Sun isn't even trying.

Incoming hot active region on the E limb! It blasted a C7.2 fairly long duration flare and a big, fairly fast CME. Impressive! Hopefully it stays active for another 5-7 days.

Oh yes, remember that one too! Fun!

AR 3981 is still waving goodbye as it rotates behind the W limb, this time with a long-duration C7.6 flare.

Anyone else like this? No matter how many times I see aurora, I get all excited when I see it again - even if it's only faint rays and pillars poking just above the northern horizon.

Koliko nas je tukaj iz Slovenije? :)

Fun fact: despite being a pretty exciting year aurora-wise, 2024 got off to a far slower start than 2025. Even if 2025 feels slow so far, and it does to me. In 2024 we got our first geomagnetic storm on March 8th. We have already had 4 in 2025 so far. Fingers crossed 2025 is even wilder than 2024.

It is actually quite frequently visible under sufficiently dark skies. You don't need Bortle class 1-2, it can be seen under class 3-4 when it is sufficiently bright. The trick is not to confuse it with high cirrus clouds illuminated by light pollution. Take a photo, if it's green, it's airglow.

Have you ever seen natural airglow?