Northern Lights

[Reynard]

I didn't go back out in the end, as anything that could be seen had pretty well much faded or been obscured by cloud. Nice to see the display though, as it was cloudy here earlier in the year.

I was astounded at just how visible the aurora was. A racing friend who lives just outside Felixtowe had posted a photo from just outside her front door, and so I went and looked out of my landing window. The sky was bright red / magenta. In an urban environment you'd have probably dismissed it as the glow from sodium lights, but out here in the middle of the fen, it was just amazing.

 

[fossyant]

I didn't go back out in the end, as anything that could be seen had pretty well much faded or been obscured by cloud. Nice to see the display though, as it was cloudy here earlier in the year.

I was astounded at just how visible the aurora was. A racing friend who lives just outside Felixtowe had posted a photo from just outside her front door, and so I went and looked out of my landing window. The sky was bright red / magenta. In an urban environment you'd have probably dismissed it as the glow from sodium lights, but out here in the middle of the fen, it was just amazing.

It's really difficult in urban areas, fortunately we had no cloud, but there was a lot of light pollution. I was able to get some good images from behind my garage, as there is a field behind and it's hidden from the street light 'glow'. At the front of our house is impossible as we have really bright LED street lights.

 

[slow horse]

...I don't know why I bother paying my council tax.

Bins and Northern Lights. It's really not too much to ask.
We missed them. Again. Time to turn our house around.

 

[Badger_Boom]

We took a drive up onto the Yorkshire Wolds to get away from the street lights of York and it was amazing. It was so bright on the way up at about 2200 that it was visible with the naked eye even with the headlamps and light pollution from nearby towns.

 

[Witzend]

Very visible for an hour from 21:30 last night - sheets of crimson to the NW and NE, bridged together with ribbons of crimson and green across the North.
NW

N

NE
EDIT - can't seem to get these to line up when posted the same as in the preview - apologies.

I use this as a forecast (bottom right of webpage) but there are many others:
https://lightsoverlapland.com/aurora-webcam/

..and this to view when it's not strong enough to reach the mainland:
https://www.shetlandwebcams.com/cliff-cam-3/

 

[craigwend]

 

[lazybloke]

Okay, dragged some pics off a proper camera.
The first was hand-held for 10 seconds. F/3.5, 18mm, ISO100. A bit grungy. This is closer to what it looked like immediately after getting out of the car; except with the naked eye you could see more stars.

That was a bit blurry, but we had a tripod. Here are crops ; both 30 seconds, F/3.5, 18mm and ISO100; and cropped from the original 4608x3072.

 

[Reynard]

And here's mine, again, from a proper camera. Canon 1D mk2, 28-70L @ 28mm & f8, 400 ISO (don't dare go any higher as the sensor doesn't have great low-light performance), 30 sec exposure on tripod. Then pushed two stops in photoshop.

 

[lazybloke]

You've caught the green nicely, @Reynard; barely noticeable in any of my shots.

 

[Reynard]

You've caught the green nicely, @Reynard; barely noticeable in any of my shots.

I was surprised to see the green when I pushed the exposure, as with the naked eye, everything seemed all red. My phone (motorola 31g) didn't really register much in the way of green despite the fact I shot mostly from the same vantage points. I'm now wondering whether it's sensor-dependent to a certain degree, especially given the variation evident in people's photographs.

FYI, my DSLR is pretty well much 20 years old.