So last night, just as I was thinking of going to bed, Twitter* was all of a-twitter with the news that it would be a good night for viewing the Northern Lights – with reports coming in of sightings as far south as Darlington. Now one of the advantages of living up here – not too far from the Dark Sky Park – is that we don’t get much light pollution on the whole so when the heavens are putting on a show, be it a meteorite shower, a close pass of the ISS or the aurora borealis, we can go outside into pitch darkness and marvel at it happening up there right above our heads, completely concealed from us by approximately half a mile of thick cloud. But last night the skies were, amazingly, clear and as I thought I’d never get the chance again I postponed my bedtime and went out to have a look.
Unfortunately the other amazing thing about living here in the summer are our long summer days which meant that at 11pm there was still way too much light in the sky to see anything at all. Muttering about light pollution I went back in, read for a bit, checked twitter (still all of a-twitter), read a bit more and staggered out again at almost midnight to check again. By this time it was still not quite dark in the sky and I spent some time looking northwards wondering if that faint hint of what-might-be-dusk wasn’t in fact some not very impressive Northern Lights until I finally decided that they could be out there in the heavens dancing the Fandango, for all I cared. I’m a creature of habit, you see, and have a way of turning into a very grumpy pumpkin if I’m kept up beyond my bedtime. And besides I had stuff to do in the morning that I needed to be fresh for. And so I sacrificed the opportunity to be moved and enthralled by this amazing phenomenon in return for my beauty sleep.
All of which made it a perfectly brilliant night for the smoke alarm in our bedroom to announce its desire for a new battery with an ear-splitting burst of sound at 5:30 in the morning. Sigh.
Fortunately there are others more patient than me
* And by ‘Twitter’ I mean the bits of twitter I follow which means that it’s made up of about 80% bikes, 5% writing stuff and the rest vaguely nerdy science-y sort of things involving jokes about statistics. Apparently there are other versions of Twitter that get excited about female celebrities not wearing any makeup. Each to their own, I suppose.
I did not realise you could see (for a given definition of see) aurora borealis in Scotland. If I ever go I’ll have to pick a time of year when I’ll have a good chance of seeing it, or at least the bottom of the cloud obscuring it. Very jealous.
further north you’ve got a much better chance – but I think the solar activity has been pretty extreme this year
You can see it quite often – but frankly it’s not the same as it looks in (say) Bill Forsyth’s “Local Hero”… more of a feint greenish smear across the sky… around the equinoxes is the most likely time to see it for some reason or try photographing the sky with as wide-angle a lens as you have 20-30 second exposure and you might see more of it then.
Much further south than you, I waited up until 1am in the hope that the cloud might break and reveal said amazing phenomenon. It didn’t, and I was woken at 3:30 by exploding elderflower champagne (or more accurately by husband saying, “One of your bottles has exploded. Go and make sure the others don’t.”)
Whereas this was taken on the shore of the Forth…
8″ exposure – I promise you having taken many shots myself from the Borders – when it’s there, 99% of the time, if you didn’t know you wouldn’t see it with the naked eye – but take a longish exposure shot and it pops into view.
Have you seen the AuroraWatch UK Flickr pool? Don’t think there are any from last night, but that one was visible as far south as Durham…
Visible to a seasoned Britsh Aurorawatcher isn’t the same as other people (I learned this the hard way) – the first time I was out looking there was a guy posting stunning pictures from less than 5 miles from me.
I was in a far darker spot and until I pointed the camera up there (on a tripod of course) it was almost imperceivable.
Thanks for all the aurora watching advice – my feeling is that if I have to wait for the pictures to show up on my camera I might as well get the sleep and then look at other people’s shots on flickr …
And Rachel – what is it with aurora watching making things go bump in the night? Angry weathergods, presumably
it’s on my bucket list! sorry you didn’t get to see it but a good night’s sleep is hard to beat (shame you didn’t get that either …) x
[...] But never mind that, for as we sat on the bench looking upwards we both saw an even faster, brighter object, a shooting star, one of the Perseids, which I’d also sort of forgotten about. We sat entranced and waited for another and though none came it was enough to have had that one flashing across the sky – and with special bonus astronomy points for happening before my bedtime. [...]