viewing the aurora borealis in the UK ?

[eyepecka]

i have heard if ya lucky the northern lights can be viewed in britain. If so where and when is the most likely place and time of the year ? ......... on the mainland i mean...

cheers

[excelsior]

do not know at the moment - i'll start researching to find out for you.

in the mean time, i've always wanted to see them and now i might finally get the chance, as i'm on holiday in scotland for two weeks in august

[perigra]

i seen them about 20 years ago in county from county durham.

apparantly they could be seen more often if it wasn't for light polution.

[weeal]

accoding to this:
http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/English/aurora _borealis.html
its more likely over Finland but I also thought Aberdeen ! Now I will have to have a further look too lol

[weeal]

this site promises to give you 'alerts' to where it will be happening across Britain

http://www.dcs.lancs.ac.uk/iono/aurorawatch/

[spudqueen]

I don't think they happen very often in Britain. My aunt remembers being woken up by her father in the middle to late 1930's to see them. They were living in Lancaster at the time.

[eyepecka]

i was lucky enough to watch a vague skiny sheet of green flowing and flapping around in alaska in 2003, mid august at 2am. i was talking to a mate about this recently and he recons he saw them in just outside london in the 60s. i imagine if it was a clear night and you was camping out in the bleak unspoiled western highlands you could be lucky.

nice one

[Cetti]

As everyone else has said you will be very lucky to see the Northern Lights on mainland Britain, eyepecka.

I once belonged to the site weeal has posted, but never once did I receive an email alert in three years, although there were sightings around Aberdeen and the Isles. So unless you are fortunate enough to live in Scotland, or occasionally the north of England, you won't be seeing them.

[hammerman]

There was an amaizing show in southern England about 9 years ago. It would've been in early July because i was away on my fishing competition. This was in Sussex.

[mrs_overall]

I saw them off the North Yorkshire coast about 25 years ago. I think it was late summertime.
I also saw them in the Orkneys a year later.

[Teddio]

The Aurora Borealis is quite common in Britain. To improve your chances of seeing it choose a clear, moonless night well away from city lights. The further North the better. There are around 50 displays a year in Northern Britain but many of these are extremely faint and take the form of auroral arcs low down in the North Western sky.
Aurora are more common during times of the sunspot maximum which occur roughly every 11 years.

[persianlady]

We where living in Oldham at the time, and where walking home from the pub when we saw it. It was fantastic, but we did not know what it was at the time. It was a bit scary. When I mentioned it to a chap at work who I knew was into astronomy, he told me what it was. This was about 18 years ago. We had never seen it before or since.