Photographers braved the cold on Sunday night to capture colourful aurora images, with a bright active display visible even from some places in the North Island. Photo: Supplied/ Grant Birley
A stunning Aurora Australis display has once again graced the night sky, with South Islanders reporting sightings in Southland and Otago on King's Birthday Monday.
The colourful natural phenomenon, also called the southern lights, put on a strong display visible in the night sky across many parts of New Zealand on Sunday night, prompting photographers as far north as Waihi to set up their tripods during the largely cloudless but cold night to capture the lights.
Astronomer and Otago Museum director Dr Ian Griffin told RNZ the spectacular display was seen further north than usual.
"Last night's clear skies across the country gave everybody a really good chance to see what I think is one of the greatest shows on earth."
"Normally, displays like this you can see most easily from southern New Zealand, but my understanding is a lot of people in the North Island last night got a good show, too," Griffin said.
Aurora is the result of material being ejected from the sun toward Earth entering our atmosphere, where it reacts with particles at the Earth's geomagnetic poles. This creates the eerie glowing lights that can be seen in the sky.
Aurora fans are hopeful the show might still be visible after dark on King's Birthday Monday, too.
Griffin said this latest burst of aurora appeared after a strong explosion on the sun: "It was quite a strong explosion that threw a whole bunch of material towards the earth."
"Fingers crossed it might persist until darkness tonight [Monday], and we might get another evening as well."
Aurora are best seen using cameras lenses that are more sensitive than our eyes, but sometimes - like last night - are strong enough to be seen with the naked eye too.
Griffin advised those hoping to get a glimpse of the lights to go to a dark spot, away from manmade lights and towns, with a good view of the stars.
He said New Zealanders were seeing more auroras than normal at the moment.
"We're quite a long way from the really active area of the aurora," Griffin said. "And it's only at times near solar maximum that we get these displays like we had last night, when they were overhead."
Grant Birley took these photos of the aurora, from Lake Ellesmere, on Sunday night. Photo: Supplied/ Grant Birley
Photographers Grant Birley and Matthew Davison made a dash to the South Island from Auckland to escape the clouds and give themselves the best chanes of capturing the magic of the aurora.
They set up at Lake Ellesmere in Canterbury at around 10.30pm where Birley said, "We could see feint colour to the naked eye but we could clearly see the aurora move and dance across the sky. We could see the beams bouncing on the horizon and then, like fingers, stretching high up into the sky and above us."
"As time went on, so the yellow auroral glow seemed to spread wider and wider on the horizon and climb higher and higher in the sky - like a dome," said Birley. " It was a dull yellow to the eye at best but as it got larger so it got brighter until all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye I saw auroral pillars/beams reaching into the sky."
The prospects for King's Birthday Monday were looking hopeful. Forecasters at the US government's Space Weather Prediction Centre [https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/auroral-activity/aurora-forecast.html said that between 3pm and 6pm NZT on Monday global magnetic conditions - referred to as Kp - could reach as high was nearly 8Kp, and could remain above 6Kp until midnight NZT (midday UTC).
At levels of 6Kp and above, aurora move much further across the globe than just the North and South Poles where they are more usually confined to, and can "become quite bright and active", the agency said. At 8Kp, that intensifies and even more bright, and more places may be able to see them: "These are the events that create the best aurora and the extended auroral oval will be observable by the most people," they said.
Conditions are promising for auroras for the next six to 12 months, Dr Griffin said, because the sun's magnetic activity is in the most active phase of its 11-year cycle.
A group with a bonfire are captured at Wainuiomata coast, on Sunday night, in front of the aurora. Photo: Supplied/ Dan Bailey
Winter offers advantages for aurora spotters because the night is dark for longer. But New Zealand has a good geographic position when it comes to aurora spotting, and it gives us good opportunities through the rest of the year too, Griffin said.
"One of the coolest thing about New Zealand is it's pretty much the only place in the world where you can watch an aurora in the middle of summer, wearing shorts and jandals."
Australia & New Zealand are getting some nice aurora right now, here's the view from Queenstown, NZ! We are currently at G2 storm level (we did hit Hp30=8 earlier). Solar wind speed is currently very high (900+ km/s), but Bt and Bz are not very favourable. We are still in the… https://t.co/hmLeb5j9kV pic.twitter.com/lfmRNnzthz
— Jure Atanackov (@JAtanackov) June 1, 2025
On Sunday night some Australian aurora fans also got a glimpse of the lights, which are rarely spotted across the ditch. ABC reported spotters as far north as Tamworth north of Sydney, in New South Wales had seen the lights.
Photographers usually use special astrophotography settings on their cameras to capture aurora, but Sunday's display was also visible to the naked eye, and would have looked closer to this. Photo: Supplied/ Dan Bailey
Cressida Toorenburg told the ABC she had seen the natural light show from East Devonport, in Tasmania, after the clouds cleared away.
"We sat for half an hour in the hope that the clouds would move away and then wow," she said.
"There was Lady Aurora! It was breathtaking - you could see her with the naked eye, but much bigger and brighter through the screen on my phone."
Toorenburg said she has lived in the area for seven years and never seen an aurora as dazzling.
"The colours were so beautiful and vibrant," she said.
From Lake Ellesmere on Sunday. Photo: Supplied/ Grant Birley
- RNZ/ ABC
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