Report
The night of April 6th to 7th, 2000, is one I won't forget quickly. Around 8:30 PM, I had engaged in some astronomy for the first time in a long while, observing and photographing the close encounter of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars. After that, it looked like it would be a rather boring evening. I was surfing the internet and was in the Weather Center chat shortly before 11:00 PM. A fellow chatter from Varel reported hearing thunderclaps. It sounded like a bad joke to us, as thunderstorms were not expected at all. He glanced up at the sky and saw that it was red. At the same time, smoke clouds rose nearby, and a fire engine siren was heard. So, everything pointed to a fire, where explosions had also occurred. It soon became apparent that there was indeed a major fire in Varel. Yet, the red color of the sky made him suspicious, and the term northern lights was mentioned in the chat. I immediately checked the current aurora activity and saw it was at a very high level. I hadn’t expected northern lights because I hadn't received a warning, which I usually get by email. The other chatters also looked out the window and could observe a sky tinged red to the north. By around 11:05, it was clear there had to be northern lights. I glanced at the sky briefly and couldn't see anything. Northern lights in southeastern Bavaria are extremely rare, and I had little hope of seeing anything here. Nevertheless, I packed up my camera equipment and walked a few hundred meters out of the town to avoid the street lighting. Once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I could clearly observe a red glow deep on the horizon to the northeast. It could only be an aurora. The sky from the north to the northwest was slightly brightened, but it looked like thin clouds. I waited from around 11:30 PM to 12:20 AM, but apart from the faint brightening, nothing else was visible. Still, it was an aurora. I then went back inside to see on the computer what was happening in the rest of Germany. The reports in the Weather Center forum were overwhelming. Northern lights sightings everywhere. However, none so far south. Then I checked my emails and learned that Karl Kaiser could even observe the aurora from Austria. Additionally, I saw that an aurora warning had now arrived in my electronic mailbox. Then came a message from Jürgen Vollmer in the forum that the aurora was visible in Marburg up to about 30° height. This was around 1:30 AM. I immediately returned to my observation spot at the city edge and saw something incredible: From west through north to east, rays rose from the horizon to a height of about 60°. They had a greenish to reddish color. In between, the sky was red. This red could be seen up to the zenith. Then some rapidly moving greenish-white streaks near the zenith. Later, rays formed that converged at the zenith. The originally moonless night was as bright as a full moon because of the auroras. I observed the brightest auroras between 1:40 AM and 2:20 AM. After that, the activity slowly decreased. The view of the sky matched exactly what I know from old leaflets about auroras in southern Germany. Of course, I also took photos. Unfortunately, I only had a 100 ISO film available. However, the auroras were so bright that they should be visible on even a normally unsuitable film with 2-3 minutes of exposure. I took the photos mainly with a 2.8/16 mm extreme wide-angle lens, as only this way could I capture the auroras in their entire expanse on film. I also took some photos with a 1.4/50 normal lens. Whether anything is visible on the pictures will be revealed on Monday. Very interesting was that on a nearby farm, the cows were mooing like crazy. The volume of the animal noises even matched the intensity of the auroras for a long time. Additionally, a dog was constantly barking. I myself almost felt as if I could feel the aurora as a slight tingling, but that may also be my imagination. This was my first aurora ever, and I am simply overwhelmed by the beauty of this celestial spectacle.