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
