Watching an aurora is always a fantastic experience but this particular evening had some extra goodness to it.

Southern lights over Clifton Beach, Tasmania. Feb 21, 2023

Whilst each display of the aurora is quite different, typically there is a greenish glow along the horizon with a varied range of red-pink-purple colours above it. There is also a subset of “sub-auroral forms”, a couple of which were on display on the evening of Feb 21, 2023.

A SAR (stable aurora red) arc became apparent during the evening

The image above shows the typical green/yellow glow on the southern horizon, but further to the east there was a very faint, but tall, beam of light along with a diffuse band of red light (invisible to the eye) stretching across the southern sky well above the aurora.

SAR arc as well as a STEVE. Clifton Beach Feb 21, 2023

Sensing something a little different was going on I kept the camera turned toward the east, and watched to see what would happen. The big red beam was visible to the eye (although not the red colour) and I have since learned it was in fact a STEVE (which stands for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) and is a relatively recently defined sub-auroral light show. The white light in between the red beam and the Milky Way is also part of the STEVE.

The red beam is a STEVE, along with the whitish light near the Milky Way

The next thing to occur was the formation of a picket fence – another structure I had not photographed before. It formed right below the red beam, and made its way across the southern sky.

Picket fence formation starting to appear below the big red STEVE

Picket fence starting to show a bit more definition

I switched the camera back into landscape orientation to capture the progression of the picket fence

Picket fence and SAR arc, Clifton Beach, Feb 21 2023

Picket fence and SAR arc, Clifton Beach, Feb 21 2023

Oh yeah, there was even a nice little bit of bioluminescence in the sea too, just for good measure! All in all a really fascinating evening shooting the southern lights.

Picket fence and SAR arc, Clifton Beach, Feb 21 2023

You can learn more about the aurora, STEVE and more from the recently published Aurora Chasers Handbook. I also run private tours and tuition which can include night sky shoots 🙂