I don't usually bother with the aurora here. Despite what you see on the photos all across the web it rarely looks much to the naked eye and it nearly always fires off around midnight or later. However, I do have the alert app on my phone. On Sunday the alert was on all day, a yellow alert so not a big deal, and not a lot of use when the Sun's in charge. It then dropped to green (no aurora) so that was that I thought. Watching the footie (bril' results for both the Irons and Leeds, so household peace guaranteed) I had the phone nearby and the aurora alert went off a couple of times with a high orange level (not far off red); more interesting. I grabbed the EPL and a tripod and went outside. There was a bit of a glow and then a couple of faint searchlights showed to the north. A bit of a wrestle with the camera, not set up for night time images and I'd not got the manual focusing engaged and forgotten how to do that. Anyway, I did grab a few pix and then quickly it was over and back to a dull green to camera, and pretty much nothing to the eye. Anyway here's what I got, well processed to be fair.
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| This on a bright, moonlit night, so harder to get really decent images. |
If it had been properly dark it might have been quite good just to the eye, but I've seen that very few times in 12 years here.
Spring continues to march on. The first Siskin of the year followed that redpoll the other day. Redshanks are now around and straight on to territory. There's a bit of thrush movement going on as well with a few flocks of Fieldfare through and some Redwings.
Frog spawn and a dead hedgehog by the hawthorn hedge, as well as a more usual one squashed on the road are other wildlife events. The hedgehog is now a lure for beetles in one of my pitfall trap sites.
And an Iceland Gull at Marwick on Saturday.
I've managed to pull a muscle in my back, cutting firewood I think. Restricting my somewhat already limited flexibility, Louise needing to be dragooned into putting my socks on for me. There are times when it is really bloody annoying being old. So macro photography in the field currently a tad limited.
2 comments:
13th March 1989. The great aurora storm. The sky was blood red overhead, like it was sunset with green curtains billowing in the north. And that was in the Midlands
I've seen one really good one in twelve years, the sky was lit up. I have a feeling I saw that 1989 one, being in Newcastle at the time, in the city, if I remember correctly we thought it was something to do with a gig going on in the city, but my memory might be skew-whiff. The aurora alert is going off tonight, not at high levels though at the moment and I have stuff to do the morn so likely won't bother.
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