Omega Holidays Northern Lights Flight
Bristol Airport (BRS), December 19th 2006
Flight Report
During the week before Christmas '06, dense fog threatened many of the airports
from which Omega were intending to operate their popular Northern Light Flights.
However, despite many flight cancellations across the country, Northern Lights chasers
weren't to be deterred and all of the flights took off as planned.
Despite outward appearances, there were problems with this flight caused by the
adverse weather. To cut a long story short, the plane that had been booked was
unable to make it to Bristol. Consequently, Omega representative
Peter Truman had a rather busy afternoon trying to secure another plane for the
flight; something he did manage to do with the assistance of a very flexible piece
of plastic!
The presentation on this occasion was given by myself (Pete Lawrence) and Ian Sharp,
both West Sussex astronomers. Lasting for an hour, the presentation was divided into
two parts. The first covered the logistics of the flight itself and some basic
navigational guides to help passengers identify the main constellation shapes
from the plane windows. The second part of the presentation concentrated on the
aurora; what it is, where it comes from and what the passengers could expect to
see that night. The fog caused problems here too as the journey across Bristol to
the airport took both presenters rather longer than expected. However we did make it
with about 15 minutes to spare and would like to thank the IT staff at BRS for
making the final connection between our computers and the audio-visual equipment in the
presentation hall so seamless.
Following the preentation, a short hop to the new airport terminal, a pass
through security and then we were ready for the flight itself.
Auroral Activity
The predicted activity levels were fairly constant at a medium to high level.
Forty minutes into the flight, the aircraft cabin was plunged into darkness and
everyone was allowed time to dark adapt. As we flew north, a rather faint glow in the
north became visible; this being the aurora. Tonight's display was rather fainter
than had been expected, the auroral arc glowing with a faint greenish tint. No major
structural activity was sighted.
Photographic Results
The faint aurora from the 19th proved rather difficult to photograph. Exposures of
many seconds unfortunately showed little in the way of recorded structure.
Photographing the lights from a plane isn't the easiest task in the world. The lights
normally require an extended exposure of several seconds to record properly. During
this time the plane or the photographer is prone to move. To keep the exposure
times as short as possible, the camera is set to a high sensitivity (ISO) setting
which inevitably introduces noise (the grainy appearance of the images).
There isn't much to show for the photographic attempts from the 19th (the single
shot of the aurora shown was a 10s exposure!), although
a chance shot of the city of Glasgow did come out fairly well...
Additional Links
Omega Holidays plc
Space weather forecasts and related information
NLF Presenter Paul Money's website
NLF Presenter Ian Sharp's website
Auroral activity from the Univerity of Lancaster
Auroral oval plots
Auroral photographs taken from Selsey on the UK's south coast
When's the Sky at Night next on?
For information on what's visible in the night sky every month (and much more)...
Pete Lawrence