23 January 2012

Aurora 2

As the weather had clouded over and started raining again I went to bed. The predictions were that Monday night's solar conditions were going to be better and the weather forecast was for clear skies.

At just after midnight Sunday, my aurora alerting system sounded an alarm and woke me up, it was showing a K index value of 6. This is one of the key figures to keep an eye on for auroral activity.

Earlier in the evening when I had seen my first aurora the K value had got up to about 5.6 so 6 should have meant even better views. A quick check out of the window showed something was visible but it was hard to see with all the light pollution in the village. So on with the warm clothes and off to a spot just down the road where it was a lot darker.

Too be honest the visual aurora although slightly visible was no better than earlier, but I did try a couple of photos before it clouded over and the rain returned. So here are my first two aurora photos taken with 30 second exposures.



So fingers crossed for some better conditions to night and some better photos soon.

2 comments:

  1. I'll look forward to some more Aurora shots!

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  2. You and me both, although we may have to wait a bit longer as the conditions tonight are not looking as good as promised earlier in the day. But the sun is still active so if anything happens it needs to be before I set off on my travels.

    I won't be impressed if it all happens while I'm away.

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