Jarlshof and stars of the past

Jarlshof is one of the most visited historical sites in Shetland and its good to capture the main building, Lairds House at night especially when the stars are showing

It was a moonless night and fairly dark although the lights from Sumburgh hotel and airport crept over onto Jarlshof and did light the buildings, although still needed some additional light painting.

I first tried a short Star trail then moved round to capture the building with Sumburgh head in the back ground. With the moon I was able to use ISO800 which resulted in less noise.

Its good getting to Jarlshof at night when no one is around, although you have to be careful where you walk otherwise you will fall down one of several large holes and get an alternative view of the stars

At night you have to watch where you are going as there are a lot of very wide deep holes to fall down if you get distracted.

 Looking North

 Looking South towards Sumburgh Head

Stars over Sumburgh Shetland

Despite the light pollution from Sumburgh airport there is plenty of interest nearby. I first called off at Mossy Hill where plenty of stars showed

Its always great to see the milky way and due to its darkness this is a good place to see not only  the Milky way but Andromeda as well, showing close to the radar mast

Next stop the top of Compass Head and a look down to the airport but you can still see stars above the glow

Its almost alien like with the orange glow from the warning light on the radar globe on top of Compass Head.

Further up the hill to the bottom carpark at Sumburgh Head. The small lighthouse is the old one from Muckle Roe and it makes as a good photographic subject

Used the light from the main lighthouse to come round to illuminate to glass dome

Moon lit from the south east

Looking towards Sumburgh Lighthouse

Its coming up to the 3rd anniversary for Shetland Aurora Hunter on facebook, the only place locally to get up to-date information on the Aurora- just send a request to join

Cloudy Aurora

Its always good to see an Aurora and its always worth chancing it even though it may be mostly cloudy

 It was forecast to be a KP6 and the stats looked good for that but the cloud had rolled in. Shetland Aurora Hunter was receiving some reports that the Aurora had been seen behind the clouds to the north

That was the case when I arrived down at Bigton, I had already passed through fog on the way down but some gaps appeared as it travelled west

Stars appeared then disappeared but you could see the Aurora glow, I could see the green but the camera revealed purple above

It was certainly active and the glow began to spread further west.

The cloud again came in so that was it for the night

The Aurora appeared for three days on the trot, but only for those that got up just before 5am, even `Steve' made an appearance to a few people

As usual, more information on Shetland Aurora Hunter on facebook