Dr. Achim Tegeler, May 10, 2024
As a passionate cook and wine lover, there is practically no way around France as a destination for culinary excursions. I went to Alsace to discover French crémant to spend a few days away from tourist routes, in the middle of the vineyards north of Colmar, to broaden my culinary horizons... and it is something very special to taste the products of wine culture at their place of origin - in this case the Grand Cru vineyard "Sonnenglanz".
On the evening of the tenth of May, messages from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) came practically every minute, reporting the ever-increasing Kp index. Time to take a closer look at the sky, although at 48° North you can rarely see auroras. And yes, there was a reddish-violet, barely perceptible shimmer in the night sky visible to the naked eye. So the noble drink was put aside and the camera was set up – at first just on the road – even near a lamp:
The camera, with its sensitive chip and long exposure time, clearly shows that the sky behind the cherry and almond trees was purple from the Northern Lights. So let's go up to the vineyard and into the vines... and there it was—in the north-northwest between Cassiopeia in the east and the moon in the west:
At the "Sonnenglanz" 11:40 pm
A beautiful sight of red and purple auroras with a hint of green-orange near the horizon. However, green auroras, which are caused by high energy charged particles able to enter deeper layers of the atmosphere, were not visible here, about 500 km south of Osnabrück.
A great experience to look at the Northern Lights and the moon around midnight all alone between the vines and chirping crickets and enjoy the uplifting sight. You may only experience something like this once in a lifetime... I'm still impressed!
All photos were taken using a Sony NEX-6 with 16 MP, ISO 1600, 12 mm lens f/2.8 and exposure times between 2 and 6 seconds.
