{"id":330554,"date":"2026-03-15T08:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T08:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/330554\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T08:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T08:30:07","slug":"twizel-aurora-australis-photographer-captures-wow-night-sky-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/330554\/","title":{"rendered":"Twizel aurora australis: Photographer captures \u2018wow\u2019 night sky display"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">Ng has various apps on his phone that send him alerts roughly an hour before any aurora can be spotted near him. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">The sun is currently in the maximum phase of its solar cycle, a roughly two-year period stretching from 2024 to 2026. This brings stronger auroras to Earth but can also cause damage to power grids and satellites. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">His apps rank each aurora on a scale of yellow, orange or red &#8211; Saturday\u2019s aurora was a red alert, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">He would go rushing outside with his camera every time his phone pinged, and while he experienced a fair share of disappointment, last night was a \u201cwow\u201d moment, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cAs a photographer, it\u2019s like fishing. I can be waiting in the dark in the middle of the night in winter for a few hours, and nothing happens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cYou\u2019re always chasing for better and stronger and bigger aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">Ng told the Herald he had noticed a lot of alerts coming through in the last few months and recalled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/massive-solar-storm-fires-up-aurora-in-new-zealand-skies\/STJXPOL2CNA2BKQVEOBZ4YRXOA\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/massive-solar-storm-fires-up-aurora-in-new-zealand-skies\/STJXPOL2CNA2BKQVEOBZ4YRXOA\/\">seeing particularly strong aurora during a large solar storm in January.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI actually feel like there could be some tonight because I am still getting alerts this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">Ng said New Zealanders have a better chance of spotting aurora if they go down south and look for them on clear nights with no clouds, when the moon is the least bright. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cSometimes we have very strong aurora during daytime, it\u2019s just that you cannot see anything until sunset.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"dmpeAfkwcv\" style=\"display:none\">Janhavi Gosavi is a Wellington-based journalist for the New Zealand Herald who covers news in the capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ng has various apps on his phone that send him alerts roughly an hour before any aurora can&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,1102,41221,2836,167207,501,32565,156,41104,2518,6930,685,57531,111,139,2551,69,29767,13636,72692,8861,9882,25628,1316,102,2139],"class_list":["post-330554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-aurora","tag-australis","tag-burst","tag-captures","tag-design","tag-display","tag-entertainment","tag-enthusiast","tag-green","tag-hues","tag-last","tag-mackenzie","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-photograph","tag-photographer","tag-purple","tag-sky","tag-spectacular","tag-twizel","tag-when","tag-with","tag-wow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330554","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=330554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}