Aurora lights up southern skies

Two nights of bright aurora have had night photographers running for their cameras to capture the multicoloured skies.

Astronomer Ian Griffin said the lights were strong enough to be captured from much of the South Island on Friday night and Saturday night, even with the lights having to outshine a near- full moon to be visible.

"It was a big aurora, that's for sure. I've seen some really nice pictures, from central Otago and Christchurch over the last few nights. They do have to be pretty strong aurora to see them with the moon," Griffin said.

Aurora are caused by material ejected from the sun at just the right angle that it enters Earth's atmosphere, where it interacts with particles at the Earth's geomagnetic poles "causing a glow" which is known as the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis at the top of the Northern Hemisphere, and the Southern Lights or Aurora Australis, at the south of the Southern Hemisphere.

The best places to see the Southern Lights are from Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, but "New Zealand and Tasmania are the two best places to go if you don't want to go to Antarctica," Griffin said.

In Tasmania, sightings of the southern lights were reported across the state, with many posting their photos online, the ABC reported.

While it was too cloudy for Griffin to see the aurora himself on Saturday night through Dunedin's city lights, he did capture a bit on Friday night with his camera.

"Cameras are really good at seeing aurora, whereas the eyes are not so good. The eyes tend to see washed out greens in the sky, whereas the cameras will see it really clearly, and see pinks and purples."

Aurora are likely to increase through the next few weeks and months, Griffin says, as an increased period of solar activity occurs.

"So it's a really good time to get out there and look at them. Some of these aurora are strong enough that you can see them even if the moon is full.

"And winter nights are good because they're getting longer."

Griffin said the Aurora Australis group on Facebook is a good place for people new to aurora to learn more about capturing the lights, get updates about likely aurora conditions, and to see pictures taken by other people.