Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) Tasmania

Saturday evening there was the chance that an Aurora maybe visible from high latitudes due to a coronal mass ejection (CME).  A CME is an ejection of a large amount of solar plasma (mostly protons and electrons) and magnetic fields from the Sun. Most CMEs are ejected into space nowhere near the Earth. Those that do impact Earth can disturb the Earth's magnetic field and lead to a subsequent disruption of the ionosphere which is observed as an Aurora.

LEFT:  Image showing coronal mass ejections from the sun (copyright Rollin Bishop)

In the southern hemisphere an Aurora is called the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) and in the northern hemisphere the same event is called the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights).

Although this Aurora wasn't particularly intense, it was still worth the short drive from Hobart.