Red Sun Blue Moon

If you look back in the recent blogs I am sure you will find me mentioning that we are heading into a solar minimum. When this occurs we have less opportunity to see the Aurora. The first photo was taken at the beginning of February, the second last year. In January 2018 we had 17 days when no sunspots were visible(50%), last year there was 104 spotless days (28%)

If you look at certain newspapers some suggest that we are entering a mini ice age and back in the 1600/1700's there was a period of 70 years without sunspots and this resulted in the River Thames freezing with mini icebergs  seen.

While we will see less Coronal Mass ejections as a result of less sunspots exploding, but there will still be splits in the sun core so the Solar wind which sparks off the Aurora will still occur. This cycle is over an 11 year period

The other notable even of January 2018 was the second Super moon in the month and this is called a Blue Moon. The last time that happened was 150 years ago on the 31 March 1866. A Super moon is 14% bigger and 30% brighter and this certainly was the case but only showed for about 5 mins before the cloud came in

In some parts of the world but not in the UK there was also a Lunar Eclipse or a Blood Moon as the moon turns Red

So if you are around in 2034 the moon will be even closer to earth when it can be seen at 221, 485 miles away.

Want to see more Aurora photos, then join us on Facebook  at Shetland Aurora Hunter- just send me a request to join

Moon washed aurora

At last a break in the cloud and rain free night with only a Force 3 wind. That's good for Shetland so we headed out  last night knowing that the Aurora forecast was around a KP5

                                                                                                 St Ninian's Tombolo

We arrived at a reasonably dark site, well normally until you take into account a near full moon that was brightening all the landscape. Tomorrow it will be a Super Moon (although looking at the weather for tomorrow it looks like rain so i doubt whether we will see it in Shetland

                                                                           A pillar of light, game on !

While the moon provided good detail in the landscape it was washing out any aurora that might appear in the sky, except i could just make out a pillar of light.

To show how bright it was on the night i was using ISO 500 15 seconds at F/3.2, unlike the last time we went out and I was having to use ISO 3200 together with some light painting

The pillar of colour did expand for a minute or so then faded away. This is typical aurora activity, some bursts of activity are very short while others last hours.

With several dark sites only around 15 mins away we are well placed to get there fast.

Still looking for that mind blowing aurora but i am sure it will come soon, however any aurora nights are worth seeing , hopefully getting some photos as well

Looking south from Bigton is St Ninian's tombolo, this looks good in the day and at night

Just an update, the Night Sky course i am running on 11 April 2017 for Shetland Adult Education is now full and the Intermediate Photography Course which includes a session on Astrophotography starting at the end of February 2017 is also full.

You still have time to buy a canvas for Christmas, see full details at www.amazingshetland.co.uk