hi there everyone i'm at east midlands
airport just outside nottingham and
shortly i'm getting on a plane to fly
north in the hope of seeing the northern
lights we're not landing or going to the
snow or anything we're just going to fly
then do a u-turn and come back
now the weather above is cloudy that's
not a problem of course because we're
going to be flying above the clouds but
what is a problem is the space weather
which isn't looking too good the solar
activity is not too high so we might not
be in luck
only one way to find out let's go and
catch this flight fingers crossed
we're going to go up to the edge or the
northern edge of uk air space to try and
peak at the aurora oval which should be
glowing towards the north now what we've
done is we've brought everybody into the
departure lounge at east midlands
airport and we are going to give them a
presentation an hour's presentation on
the stars they can see up there plus
what causes the aurora and the sun
effect basically an interaction with the
earth's magnetic field and then we're
going to get on board the aircraft we're
going to fly towards the north
hopefully turn the well no we won't
hopefully we will turn the lights off
and give everybody about 20 minutes dark
adaption time before we actually get to
our point north and the plane will fly
backwards and forwards
doing a racetrack pattern and people on
one side of the aircraft alternately
will see a view towards the north if we
see the aurora that's brilliant but you
got no guarantee with that but the stars
are fantastic up there the milky way
looks spectacular when you see it out of
the plane window so i'm quite excited
there seems to be a bit of a faint glow
there which is probably the very edge of
the aurora our heading tonight is such
that i think the left hand side got a
slightly better view of it as we're
heading up north your eyes are actually
undergoing a chemical reaction now i'm
becoming much more sensitive and outside
there are some great views of the stars
they'll get even better as your eyes get
fully dark adapted you can see that
aurora shape as pete said not not much
by where it features but it is certainly
visible yes i can see with my trained
eye no apparent structure in it but you
can certainly see the suspension bridge
effect where it's arching over very
sliding yeah if you're into films and
movies
it is an incredible atmosphere um
because there are three people either
side of the plane
and in order for people to be able to
see out of the window there has to be a
sort of um aurora shuffle if you like
where the people at the window then move
to the isle and vice versa so they all
have to get up and so there's a
community spirit i think and everybody's
very excited about it and what happens
is we tell them to do that right at the
very beginning of the flight and after a
while they just find their own natural
rhythm to do it and i think people make
great friends
on these flights as a consequence of
that very distinctive uh i recognize
this person
you're causing trouble no no how's it
all going all right yeah not so bad
where are you going sir going back to my
wife
oh you've been oh you've been naughty
moving forward have you yeah here it is
this is the aurora look and it's
beginning to bring into some nuts you
can see the little some brightness
bright condensations on it there look
running along the bottom of the sheet
there
oh yes it's boom
let me show you a photo because i've got
my camera down here my camera has been
adjusted
for
dark flying so it's got a red cellophane
cover over it if i show you the photos
i've got there
that's not bad so we've got the red glow
on the top and we've also got the green
kicking in there so that's the main
aurora if we go a bit later
in the display if i wind forward a bit
you can see that there is a bit of
structure there
so there's a ray starting to form in
that one if i zoom up the stars get a
bit blurry
on the flights because it's a moving
platform there's a 30 second exposures
it's still a fairly weak display i have
to say i mean we have um
we have displays which are so
intense that you can look down the
aircraft and people's faces look green
because the aurora is glowing and we're
always badgering the flight deck to go
as far north as as possible and we've
had one flight uh it was out of bristol
where we went as far north as possible
and it was such an active aurora
that we were actually underneath it the
auroral oval had spread out and we had
to go in and say please can you go a bit
further south because we can't see it
it's above us um so
it you can never tell what's happening
with the aurora it's it's just so
unpredictable and that's one of the
beauties of it really
you