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Melanie Newfield's avatar

Wow, I don't know if I've ever seen these, but they are fascinating. They are reported from New Zealand but I wonder if they are rarer as it never gets so cold.

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Mike Sowden's avatar

A balm for my eyes, this whole edition. (And thank you for the mention of my Twitter thread!)

I also love how we're all transfixed by that same Brocken Spectre video on Twitter - I was planning to share it sometime soon (if Twitter doesn't explode, obvs), and then I got Freya Rohn's latest newsletter and it was there too (https://ariadnearchive.substack.com/p/commonplacing-269/comments) and now yours as well! I kinda love that. Some chap out for a walk sees a weird thing, and it ripples out into the world first on Twitter and then in dozens of newsletters. This is the way wonder should work.

At the same time - I've never seen a Brocken Spectre or a light pillar. I've written about them but the reality of them haunts me from a distance. Ditto the Northern Lights - I keep getting pinged by my AuroraWatch app and leap out into the night to find the skies are cloud-locked tighter than Fort Knox. I'm hoping for some incredibly clear but terminally cold geomagnetically active night soon, so I can wander out onto the beach and see the Lights, just before I freeze solid while stood upright, and someone walking their dog in the morning finds me stood there with an expression of pure delight on my face. That would be a good way to go...

Or I could just get a fleece balaclava?

Tell you what, I'll get a fleece balaclava. And a thermos flask.

Yeah, okay. I like that plan better.

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