Pulsating Shetland Aurora

March and the beginning of April have been excellent times for seeing the aurora in Shetland as we are in the Solar Maximum period

At this time of year this is known as the Russel McPherron effect, this is where the Earth has turned to line up the north pole directly with the sun. It is always a good time along with September.

We have had many good nights but also a few cloudy ones. I took a chance and headed over to the west and had a few breaks in the cloud.

on the nights of the 4 and 5 April there was a pulsating aurora, which is the first time I have seen it and it was impressive happening just after 11am and again in the early hours.

 

Shetland moonlit aurora

Auroras are good at anytime but i prefer a bit of moonlight to light up the foreground, and you can use a lower ISO so less noise 

these were taken down at Sandsayre under a strong aurora

 more at Shetland Aurora Hunter on Facebook

Sar with big Aurora -Shetland

Great to finally see a SAR arc (Stable Auroral  Red Arc. SAR arcs occur during geomagnetic storms when the inner edge of the ring current interacts with a contracted plasmasphere.. A portion of the ring current energy is dissipated as hear that gets conducted along geomagnetic field lines into the topside ionosphere.

You couldn't see the arc by eye only on camera and again most people didn't see it as it was south of the aurora similar to seeing STEVE.

With the snow the red really stood out with a colourful aurira

 

Shetland aurora waves

 Final managed to get out after a week of snow ice and gales, a clearish night and an aurora

It started early with an Orange alert by 5.30pm . These i manage to catch at about 6.15-7.15pm down at sandsayre

The tide was in and created some good photo opportunities

I really think you need a small torch to paint the landscape, it lifts the whole scene, but occasionally a silhouette is good as well.

It is good to have Sand Lodge, a big imposing building down at Sandsayre, this area  a memorial to a neighboro who passed away.

Shetland aurora

The massive aurora had faded the night after but green was still showing

This is Sandlodge to the east , with plenty of stars on show

 

Shetland massive aurora

Shetland Aurora hunter on facebook was bombarded with requests to join and numerous photos

The best part of the show happened when we were in a concert but it was still going 3.5 hours later around 11.30pm

Lots of Red, pink, orange showed this was a powerful one and the aurora was seen far south into Europe

Possibly the best in 40 years

It was also a calm still night and a few people heard the aurora calling