Tasmania has a reputation for spectacular Aurora Australis displays but even by the island state’s standards, the past few days have been stellar.

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Shutterbugs both professional and amateur have been primed to grab the camera bag and stay up all night to capture the spectacle — and the good news is there may be more on the horizon.

In fact, coming displays may be even better.

Some enthusiasts have described the past few nights as the biggest and brightest instances of Aurora Australis in years.

For amateur astronomer David Finlay, who has been chasing auroras across the globe for over two decades, Thursday night’s display was one of the greatest he has ever witnessed. 

“What I saw the other night from Franklin in Tasmania absolutely blew my socks off,” he said. 

“Auroras get a little bit of a bad wrap that it’s only spectacular on camera, and that’s certainly part of it … but people also have the expectation they will see the same with the naked eye. 

“That’s usually not the case because our eyes are very poor at picking up colour in low-light conditions.”

But it was not just the vivid colours that impressed him. 

“What I also saw, which was absolutely incredible — and the only way I could describe it — is these space weather bombs, these massive pulsing shock waves.”

“You can’t see that in photography … but with the naked eye and the video I took I got to see this rapid pulsing.

“It was almost violent in nature but it was so spectacular and beautiful and just added to the whole energy of the night.” 

Why were these auroras so vivid?

The recent activity was also captured in parts of south-east Australia and New Zealand.

And while auroras are not a rare occurrence in Tasmania, astrophysicist Andrew Cole said the quality of recent ones only occurred every decade or so. 

“[Auroras are] completely random. It’s like weather … because it’s difficult to predict and you don’t know ahead of time really when they’re going to happen or how much you’re going to get,” he said.

“The sun has this magnetic activity cycle. Sometimes there are lots of sunspots and it’s a very turbulent solar atmosphere while other times it can be very, very quiet. 

“It can take between eight and 13 years, so 11 years on average for the cycle to repeat itself.”