Stunning pictures of last night's amazing sky over Canberra were taken by a host of all-night enthusiasts who were still breathless with excitement hours after dawn broke on Friday.
"It was magical," Shan Pack said of the aurora which shimmered for hours, changing colours like some cosmic light show.
"I'm totally buzzing," Tom O'Dea said.
"It's just, wow. It was amazing. It danced. It was so vibrant. It's like the end of the world," Chris Chia said.
They were up in darkened spots around Canberra from after midnight to see the Aurora Australis, a very rare phenomenon caused by emissions from the sun and the way they interact with the atmosphere to produce brilliant ribbons of ever-changing colours.
As NASA explains: "These natural light shows are caused by magnetic storms that have been triggered by solar activity, such as solar flares (explosions on the Sun) or coronal mass ejections (ejected gas bubbles)."
They are extremely rare to see, but those in the know were aware that Thursday night was the night to eschew sleep and seek a dark spot without light pollution to get an awesome view of a light show only nature could put on.
"I'm 49 years old," Tom O'Dea from Yass said. "And this is the first time. I feel like it's a semi-religious experience."
He had monitored what he called "space nerd websites" which analysed two sets of data: the strength of emissions from the sun and the state of earth's atmosphere in our region. The combination of the two indicated that last night would produce the fabulous display so he set his alarm and took his camera to a spot near Yass.
"I was setting up and it just kicked off," he said. He is a professional photographer and took superb pictures with a long exposure of between 15 and 30 seconds.
Shan Pack was out to the south of Canberra. She, too, is an enthusiast. She's even been to Finland to try - and fail - to see the phenomenon within the Arctic Circle.
But there was no failure last night: "The sky just lit up with sheets of colour. It was like a show that would come in and out with its intensity for hours."
"I had been monitoring the phenomenon for many years but the data told me that it was going to be a big bang, and it sure was," Chris Chia said.
The aurora enthusiasts know their science. They can read the numbers, some of which come from satellites more than a million kilometres from space. The emissions from the sun take three days to reach earth so everything needs to be aligned.
The phenomenon hasn't left the sky. It's just that daylight makes it invisible but it should be there on Friday night, too.
"I'm going out again," Chris Chia said. "According to the data, it won't be as strong as last night but it will still be pretty good."
