St Ninian's isle, Shetland at night

No Aurora activity for a few days now and a series of spotless days on the sun. We did however have a couple of sunspots which shed a bit of light on the fact that we might becoming out of the Solar minimum

Stars above Bigton Kirk

Looking south with Mars in view

St Ninian's Tombolo

Looking south from Ireland towards St Ninian's

Boats on the horizon

Aurora Reminders

We are now getting closer to the solar minimum and as a result we should get less aurora activity. The sun is again spotless making this the 133rd day so far this year, you have to go back to 2009 to find a period like this and this was the deepest solar minimum this century.

Already this period we have had a couple of nights when the Aurora  has shown but this was around 2.00am , too late for me. I always think of September as the start of the season with the nights drawing in so any observations can be at a reasonable time.

The photos shown here are from last season and we had some crackers including these taken at Bigton

`Steve' also made an appearance and was totally unexpected and it still sparks of conversations among the hunters. Too many people made the mistake of trying to get round a lot of locations and spent too much time in the car rather than photographing.

The appearance of `Steve' is usually one arc but two could be seen, a rare sight indeed. The green usually associated with the arc can be seen in the lower on in the above photo.

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High energy can be seen in these photos and was easily visibleto the naked eye, it certainly was fast moving and for me was one of the best Aurora nights I have experienced

If you want to join me on a course to photograph the night sky, then book the one below which will be held in Lerwick, Shetland in November/ December. Only a few places available so book soon

` Steve' rare Aurora in Shetland

Last Sunday 18 March 2018 will go down as one of the best but most unexpected Aurora displays we have seen so far in Shetland

The forecast was for a moderate display, so on a clear wind free night we headed out over to Bigton

As soon as we arrived we could see the Aurora with our naked eye, it was very active with pillars of colour above the large dense green area

After about 10 mins I notices a band overhead and immediately recognised this as `Steve', a vary rare form of Aurora. Steve or Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement has only recently been discovered

It appears as a distinct purple ribbons with green edges and it constantly moving across the sky. NASA indicates that is can be found at low altitudes than the normal Aurora

The European Space Agency who has been studying this, has published a detail account in the journal Science Advances (March 14). Since it was discovered it has been seen in the UK, New Zealand, Alaska, Canada and the northern United States.

According to NASA Steve can be found south and lower down the normal Aurora activity and can last anything from 20 mins up to an hour. It stretches East - West. A green colour associated with Steve is usually short lived

It is also known by some astrophotographers as a Proton Arc but in fact it is a subauroral Arc.

A Proton Arc is subvisual, diffused and broad where as this Subauroral Arc is narrow, bright and structured

It seems that it was first seen in 2015 and has been viewable about 30 times. Observations occur when there is increased Aurora activity

Steve seems to connect to different magnetic field lines closer to the equator so it is seen further south than the normal Aurora. When we saw it, it was overhead about  60 degree north originally seen as a long purple line then it split and looked like a broken line. Some think its like an elastic band which when it breaks causes a charge particles bounce back towards earth. This may have been caught below because just after it faded away

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More Steve photos to come in the next blog