I love the idea of watching the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) and was equally pleased to learn of the existence of Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) which I’m sure would be just as fascinating to watch in the night sky.  So far, I’ve not seen either of these phenomena but, with the increased levels of solar activity of late, it’s possible that, with a clear sky, it may be possible to see the Northern Lights, even where I live in Southern England and I was pretty hopeful this evening.  Sadly the forecast has changed and a display here now looks unlikely.

Even so, whilst I was hunting for advice on how best to see the Northern Lights, I found some really good information about the auroras and it’s probably worth sharing it here:

• First up, I found the British Geological Survey’s advice on viewing the Northern Lights in the UK. There is also a Twitter account (@BGSAuroraAlert) that gives occasional alerts from the British Geological Survey.
• The BGS Aurora Alert feed pointed me in the direction of an Auroral Forecast which includes maps for various regions including a European Aurora Forecast.
• Finally, Lancaster University’s AuroraWatch UK website includes live magnetometer data and  an alerting system that can be followed on Twitter (@aurorawatchuk), Facebook and by email.

Image credit: Aurora, by well_lucio on Flickr. Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0).