As the weekend drew to a close my son messaged me early Sunday evening about a huge solar flare and whether there would be the northern lights that night. Checking my phone app there didn’t seem anything special at the time with the aurora footprint well above Scotland. The app did indicate level 6.0Kp prediction for around 9pm - but as 9pm came and went there was no notifications from the app and looking at the aurora map I wasn’t convinced much was going to happen from our location.

So it came to sleep time, and around 10.40pm as I was soon to put the light out, I had one more check of the phone and was shocked to seem a complete transformation of the footprint of the aurora. It was now extending well into the highlands of Scotland further south that I had seen since living here. I quickly jumped out of bed, grabbed the dressing gown, thick coat and camera - forgetting the phone and went outside.

It was a little underwhelming! Looking in the usual north westerly direction where I had taken my best photos of the aurora in the past there was a fair amount of cloud. The green of the aurora with obvious activity was visible, but similar to my past experiences - only this time it was more difficult to see!

Turning north I noticed there was less cloud (initially) but also the light of the aurora extending much further than I had seen before, so I changed the camera position and took a few photos. The cloud was still intermittently obscuring the view but there was clear activity.

With the shafts of light continuing, I started to take multiple shots to build up a collection for a time lapse. As the minutes ticked by (5 seconds shutter speed, 5 seconds camera processing time for each photo), I noticed that the band of light was rising ‘higher’ (nearer), but had no idea what was soon to follow:

It was at this moment when the aurora was at its highest/nearest point with not a lot changing, that I started to consider calling it a night - it was already 11.30pm with an early rise before work the following the morning on my mind. But I had a sense I should stay a while longer - and I am so glad I did.

It is difficult to describe the experience, but suddenly it was as though someone flicked a switch and across the length of the ‘band’ of the aurora, rays of light started to shoot heavenwards. It was totally surreal. I wish I had multiple cameras to have taken additional different photos, but I was intent on getting a good time lapse, so just continued to click away. It was almost other-worldly as I stared at these huge pillars of light (just making out the green with the naked eye) bursting upwards in full motion as I looked ahead of me and over to the west.

The photos below hopefully will convey something of the experience.

And then it was as though the fireworks really started - I re-adjusted the camera position again as increasing intensity light, enfolding itself and flowing backwards and forwards started to parade before me - while I continued clicking the camera shutter as I stood pretty awestruck!

The photos below are just a small selection from dozens that made up the time lapse (click to enlarge the each image).