{"id":121884,"date":"2025-11-06T23:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T23:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/121884\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T23:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T23:01:08","slug":"aurora-australis-lights-up-southland-and-otago-skies-in-vivid-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/121884\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora Australis lights up Southland and Otago skies in vivid display"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img  alt=\"Leeana Ferguson took her two young daughters to see the stunning display. Photo \/ Leeana Ferguson\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Leeana Ferguson took her two young daughters to see the stunning display. Photo \/ Leeana Ferguson<\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">An aurora is triggered by activity on the sun, which sends charged particles moving across space. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">These interact with the earth\u2019s magnetic field, which can lead to geomagnetic storms, which, in turn, can trigger dazzling auroras visible in our night skies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">Aurora Australis sightings can happen year-round but are most common during the equinoxes in March and September as long, dark nights increase the odds of seeing the light.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The spectacular event captured above Kaitangata. Photo \/ Leeana Ferguson\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The spectacular event captured above Kaitangata. Photo \/ Leeana Ferguson<\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">Ferguson said the beams looking out onto Kaka Point were \u201cclearly visible to the naked eye\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI think this is about the third time this year I\u2019ve been lucky enough to get good photos of the aurora,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI keep an eye on Facebook to see when there\u2019s a chance of seeing them, and yesterday I saw a few posts saying, \u2018tonight\u2019s the night\u2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cSo, just after 10pm when it was dark enough, we drove a couple of minutes to our usual spot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cSure enough, as soon as I hopped out of the car, I could see the beams dancing across the sky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cMy kids probably think I\u2019m a bit crazy because I get so excited, but they don\u2019t quite understand yet how special it is to witness the auroras. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI feel so grateful to be able to share that experience with them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ZzQnbEvs\" style=\"display:none\"> \u201cEven if they don\u2019t fully get it now, I hope one day they\u2019ll feel the same excitement I do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leeana Ferguson took her two young daughters to see the stunning display. Photo \/ Leeana Ferguson An aurora&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[95,1102,41221,1558,6924,32565,305,33305,78,25140,111,139,69,9629,147,9877,15488,392,12825,23505,810,82104,85513,102],"class_list":["post-121884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-and","tag-aurora","tag-australis","tag-been","tag-colours","tag-display","tag-have","tag-illuminated","tag-in","tag-lights","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-otago","tag-science","tag-skies","tag-southland","tag-space","tag-stunning","tag-treated","tag-up","tag-vibrant","tag-vivid","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}