In the past three months, I've flown overnight from San Francisco to the UK/Europe three times.
Three times, I got a window seat on the left side of the plane.
And three times... well, see for yourself.
First tripSecond tripThird trip
Key thing to know: these aurora did not look like this to the naked eye. They were usually too faint to see the color at all; they looked like faint moonlight shining around the edges of a dark cloud. Except the "cloud" was higher up than an airplane flying at 10+ km.
It wasn't apparent what they were until I blocked out light from the cabin and took a long-exposure photo. (On my phone, that just means using the "night sight" mode.) That kinda makes these aurora cooler, in a way - you won't really notice there's anything interesting there unless you know to look for it and then image it in a special way.
In the past three months, I've flown overnight from San Francisco to the UK/Europe three times.
Three times, I got a window seat on the left side of the plane.
And three times... well, see for yourself.
Key thing to know: these aurora did not look like this to the naked eye. They were usually too faint to see the color at all; they looked like faint moonlight shining around the edges of a dark cloud. Except the "cloud" was higher up than an airplane flying at 10+ km.
It wasn't apparent what they were until I blocked out light from the cabin and took a long-exposure photo. (On my phone, that just means using the "night sight" mode.) That kinda makes these aurora cooler, in a way - you won't really notice there's anything interesting there unless you know to look for it and then image it in a special way.