On Tuesday the conditions for seeing the aurora seemed good, a reasonably clear night, fairly calm for Shetland and last quarter visible moon. The only thing it was cold, very cold. So i wrapped up, two pairs of socks, tea-shirt, shirt, two jumpers, body warmer and thick coat, hat and gloves.
Just a faint green glow at first
As ice was expected we went over to Bigton early and the journey was not too bad at 7.30 pm. The aurora was already showing on Shetland cliff cam 3, a bright green glow and it was estimated to be a KP5 tonight so things looked promising.
We were soon in position and the aurora was already visible before our eyes adjusted to the dark. A green band arched over Bigton and Ireland and grew in colour as the evening progressed
The aurora started to show a pink, then red colour with some purple as well, it was becoming a great show, even though it was very, very cold.
About 9 pm a car pulled up and two people got out and started to talk loudly in Russian, perhaps they didn't see me standing about 30 yards away. Now had we been invaded tonight ? Russian bombers had to be escorted away from Shetland airspace and a fleet of Russian warships came very close to Shetland waters recently.
Very active for a while
They may have become excited by the aurora and forgot to turn their car lights off . Then one person decided to get a tripod out and tried to hold it with the camera on, rather than setting it up properly.
Cloud rolled in about 9.30 pm and it started to rain a bit so we set off back and found the road from Bigton back to the A970 very icy.
Getting back home we checked the internet to find out the further south it had become even more active after 9.35 pm
Still time to purchase a canvas from www.amazingshetland.co.uk in time for Christmas
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