While observing the HOYS fields in Perseus (NGC1333, IC348) on Monday night of this week (20226-01-19) with the Tautenburg 2m Schmidt telescope – a long-time contributor to the HOYS project – a massive outbreak of aurora started, turning the sky into red, and later green. These so-called “forbidden” lines of neutral oxygen at wavelengths of 5577 (green) and 6300 (red) Angstrom of the aurora are also seen frequently in the spectra of young stars, like the HOYS targets. While in the aurora they are excited by electrons and (rarely) protons from the solar wind and solar eruptions hitting the atmosphere, in young stars they are excited by shock waves in outflowing winds connected to the accretion events, that HOYS is studying.
