Spiggie Moonshine- Shetland

A bit of aurora low to the right

 

Pink Aurora Shetland

These are from late April at Sandsayre, Sandwick. Good to see the Mousa boat, it shows that the winds are going to be light

 

Red Aurora Shetland

Coming up on the last few posts, some Aurora nights in Shetland over the past months.

 Join Shetland Aurora Hunter for all the latest info

 

A bit of Green- Shetland

A bit of a strange day yesterday. The day was very windy with heavy rain but the evening turned out still and part clear skies, then very cold with icy roads

An early Yellow Alert before 6pm made me scramble to see whether any stars showed and yes a few did

So off I went down to Sandsayre where nothing showed at first. after about 10mins some green popped through , off to the west

It continued to grow and with a bit more broken sky showed even more, for another 5 mins

It then disappeared and didn't show again until about 23hrs, again behind cloud. If you want to see more join Shetland Aurora Hunter on face book

Milky Way

 

Seeing the Milky way is always a special even and on this night, it was clear and moon free

The ideal conditions to see and photograph the Milky Way down at St Ninian's

All photos taken at ISO3200 13 seconds at F1.8

For anyone who is interested, i am just re printing my book ` Shetland Aurora Hunter' , this is 164 pages with 85 photos, lots of info on how to photograph the aurora, history of the aurora in Shetland, what the terms mean and much more - £20+postage and packing. message me if interested.

Mega Shetland Aurora - No1

This is the first part of an amazing Aurora that hit Shetland last Thursday. After weeks and weeks of severe gales, snow, hail, and heavy rain not to mention the total cloud cover the night was surprising clear and still and even correctly forecasted 

You could even see it from our light polluted  house, at least three arcs 

Arriving down at Sandsayre just after 6pm you could see the Aurora starting to form

After a few minutes a few fellow Shetland Aurora Hunters arrived to admire the display

The moon was very bright so hence the illuminated foreground, which i always like to see

Tom Jamieson join us having arrived straight for work

Showing Aurora alerts are not always reliable, this one didn't rise above an Amber alert but seeing it I would have put it down as a Purple alert (top one) this was the best display I have seen in 5 years

It had to be powerful to beat the moonlight 

The display lasted for just an hour then it clouded over before returning for 1/2 hour just after 9pm. More photos on the next blog

Looking forward to giving a talk on the Aurora in Shetland in Sandwick on Thursday, hope to see some of you then.