May 10 – Northern lights in Germany

May 9 was thursday and a public holiday so May 10 (friday) was a very quiet work day. When I read something about very strong Northern Lights that were potentially coming up in the evening I decided to finish work early and go to the countryside on friday afternoon instead of saturday morning. Weather forecast promised some nearly cloudless skies so I thought ‚Why not try?‘
First we had a nice sunset and when it started to get dark I did some trial pics from our garden and then finally took my camera and tripod, went down the street (not even far away – but just away from streetlights) and as soon as I had set up my equipment I started to see pink. I actually saw a bit of pink with my eyes. I stayed for one hour and missed the major sun storm shortly after midnight but that is OK. You never know what is going to happen with Northern Lights and otherwise I would have stayed outside. Just seeing Northern Lights in Germany was something special and looks like something like this could happen again this year or next. And then I want the pics of the Cologne cathedral with northern lights. 😉
But it is amazing how far south the Northern Lights were visible – I even saw pics from Olbia in Sardinia with a red sky. I am sure LOTS of people saw them for the first time in their lives.