Aurora over Scotland

 
Aurora over Scotland
Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights displays photographed taken over Aberdeeshire in Scotland since 1989 covering some 350 events with arc, rays, coronas with a wide rnage of shapes and colours

Images 501-520 of 887 displayed. Show 20, 60 or all per page.
Results: << Previous 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Next >>

Aurora Glen Dye au61051jhp 
 Scotland Aurora Borealis display Glen Dye rays clouds first photo autumn 26th & 27th September 1989 taken from Heatheryhaugh just above steep climb out of Glen Dye on the road to the Cairn O’Mount and which looks across to Clachnaben, the notable hill with a tor rocky outcrop which makes it visible from much of Deeside when looking south. This photo was the first I took of an Aurora display using the Fuji 400asa slide film and came just after midnight when clouds cleared and made the stars and night sky visible and some rays visible through the gaps. This was probably an underexposure, maybe 10 seconds or so. The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the display captured here.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I photographed using Fuji RHP 400asa, used in this photo, and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than 20 seconds incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the 400asa slide film at the lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. I found that the pushed 400asa stock was finer grained than the RSP11 which was rated at 1600asa-it was later dropped by Fuji when Provia was introduced. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Glen Dye au610517jhp 
 Aberdeenshire Aurora Borealis display Glen Dye faint rays clouds gaps autumn 26th & 27th September 1989 taken from Heatheryhaugh just above steep climb out of Glen Dye on the road to the Cairn O’Mount and which looks across to Clachnaben, the notable hill with a tor rocky outcrop which makes it visible from much of Deeside when looking south. This photo is one of the first I took of an Aurora display using the Fuji 400asa slide film and came just after midnight when clouds cleared and made the stars and night sky visible although the large brown patches are moving cloud. The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the display captured here.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I photographed using Fuji RHP 400asa, used in this photo, and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than 20 seconds incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the 400asa slide film at the lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. I found that the pushed 400asa stock was finer grained than the RSP11 which was rated at 1600asa-it was later dropped by Fuji when Provia was introduced. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Cairn O Mount au617120jhp 
 Scotland Aurora Borealis maximum bright strong display winter hills Boxing Day December Cairn O’Mount 1989 taken from just below the Cairn O’Mount on its North face and which looks northwards towards Deeside. This photo is from the fourth Aurora Display I photographed after my first one in September and the arc started to develop from 22.00 hrs UT onwards. I felt that the summit of the Cairn would be a good vantage point and offer uncluttered views northwards. It was a good light pollution free viewpoint but apart from an occasional passing car, headlights a headache during an exposure, I soon realised that it was along way to go and of course further south of and way from any displays. In some of the photos there are two small lights on the horizon which I reckoned were from a farm on the Hill of Fare several miles to the north. The single dark pole is a snow pole and on the side of the nearby hillside are snow fences. This display was a classic in terms of an Arc, waxing and waning until it reached a point of no return when single and then multiple burst upwards from the arc as well as moving quite rapidly from right to left; East to West. Generally the colour was a pale whitish/yellow colour with a hint of red in some of the rays.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than that incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Cairn O Mount au617119jhp 
 Scotland Aurora Borealis Boxing Day December rays bright Cairn O’Mount 1989 taken from just below the Cairn O’Mount on its North face and which looks northwards towards Deeside. This photo is from the fourth Aurora Display I photographed after my first one in September and the arc started to develop from 22.00 hrs UT onwards. I felt that the summit of the Cairn would be a good vantage point and offer uncluttered views northwards. It was a good light pollution free viewpoint but apart from an occasional passing car, headlights a headache during an exposure, I soon realised that it was along way to go and of course further south of and way from any displays. In some of the photos there are two small lights on the horizon which I reckoned were from a farm on the Hill of Fare several miles to the north. The single dark pole is a snow pole and on the side of the nearby hillside are snow fences. This display was a classic in terms of an Arc, waxing and waning until it reached a point of no return when single and then multiple burst upwards from the arc as well as moving quite rapidly from right to left; East to West. Generally the colour was a pale whitish/yellow colour with a hint of red in some of the rays.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than that incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Cairn O Mount au617118jhp 
 Scottish Aurora Borealis display Boxing Day west rays Cairn O’Mount 1989 taken from just below the Cairn O’Mount on its North face and which looks northwards towards Deeside. This photo is from the fourth Aurora Display I photographed after my first one in September and the arc started to develop from 22.00 hrs UT onwards. I felt that the summit of the Cairn would be a good vantage point and offer uncluttered views northwards. It was a good light pollution free viewpoint but apart from an occasional passing car, headlights a headache during an exposure, I soon realised that it was along way to go and of course further south of and way from any displays. In some of the photos there are two small lights on the horizon which I reckoned were from a farm on the Hill of Fare several miles to the north. The single dark pole is a snow pole and on the side of the nearby hillside are snow fences. This display was a classic in terms of an Arc, waxing and waning until it reached a point of no return when single and then multiple burst upwards from the arc as well as moving quite rapidly from right to left; East to West. Generally the colour was a pale whitish/yellow colour with a hint of red in some of the rays.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than that incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, multiple, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Cairn O Mount au617117jhp 
 Scotland Aurora Borealis moving ray red headlights Boxing Day Aberdeenshire December Cairn O’Mount 1989 taken from just below the Cairn O’Mount on its North face and which looks northwards towards Deeside. This photo is from the fourth Aurora Display I photographed after my first one in September and the arc started to develop from 22.00 hrs UT onwards. I felt that the summit of the Cairn would be a good vantage point and offer uncluttered views northwards. It was a good light pollution free viewpoint but apart from an occasional passing car, headlights a headache during an exposure, I soon realised that it was along way to go and of course further south of and way from any displays. In some of the photos there are two small lights on the horizon which I reckoned were from a farm on the Hill of Fare several miles to the north. The single dark pole is a snow pole and on the side of the nearby hillside are snow fences. This display was a classic in terms of an Arc, waxing and waning until it reached a point of no return when single and then multiple burst upwards from the arc as well as moving quite rapidly from right to left; East to West. Generally the colour was a pale whitish/yellow colour with a hint of red in some of the rays.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than that incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Cairn O Mount au617115jhp 
 Scotland Northern Lights multiple rays arc red yellow display 1989 Boxing Day December Cairn O’Mount taken from just below the Cairn O’Mount on its North face and which looks northwards towards Deeside. This photo is from the fourth Aurora Display I photographed after my first one in September and the arc started to develop from 22.00 hrs UT onwards. I felt that the summit of the Cairn would be a good vantage point and offer uncluttered views northwards. It was a good light pollution free viewpoint but apart from an occasional passing car, headlights a headache during an exposure, I soon realised that it was along way to go and of course further south of and way from any displays. In some of the photos there are two small lights on the horizon which I reckoned were from a farm on the Hill of Fare several miles to the north. The single dark pole is a snow pole and on the side of the nearby hillside are snow fences. This display was a classic in terms of an Arc, waxing and waning until it reached a point of no return when single and then multiple burst upwards from the arc as well as moving quite rapidly from right to left; East to West. Generally the colour was a pale whitish/yellow colour with a hint of red in some of the rays.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than that incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Cairn O Mount au617114jhp 
 Scotland Aurora Borealis several rays moving arc hill starting display Boxing Day December Cairn O’Mount 1989 taken from just below the Cairn O’Mount on its North face and which looks northwards towards Deeside. This photo is from the fourth Aurora Display I photographed after my first one in September and the arc started to develop from 22.00 hrs UT onwards. I felt that the summit of the Cairn would be a good vantage point and offer uncluttered views northwards. It was a good light pollution free viewpoint but apart from an occasional passing car, headlights a headache during an exposure, I soon realised that it was along way to go and of course further south of and way from any displays. In some of the photos there are two small lights on the horizon which I reckoned were from a farm on the Hill of Fare several miles to the north. The single dark pole is a snow pole and on the side of the nearby hillside are snow fences. This display was a classic in terms of an Arc, waxing and waning until it reached a point of no return when single and then multiple burst upwards from the arc as well as moving quite rapidly from right to left; East to West. Generally the colour was a pale whitish/yellow colour with a hint of red in some of the rays.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than that incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Cairn O Mount au617113jhp 
 Scottish Aurora Borealis early stage arc active Cairn O'Mount rays display Boxing Day December 1989 taken from just below the Cairn O’Mount on its North face and which looks northwards towards Deeside. This photo is from the fourth Aurora Display I photographed after my first one in September and the arc started to develop from 22.00 hrs UT onwards. I felt that the summit of the Cairn would be a good vantage point and offer uncluttered views northwards. It was a good light pollution free viewpoint but apart from an occasional passing car, headlights a headache during an exposure, I soon realised that it was along way to go and of course further south of and way from any displays. In some of the photos there are two small lights on the horizon which I reckoned were from a farm on the Hill of Fare several miles to the north. The single dark pole is a snow pole and on the side of the nearby hillside are snow fences. This display was a classic in terms of an Arc, waxing and waning until it reached a point of no return when single and then multiple burst upwards from the arc as well as moving quite rapidly from right to left; East to West. Generally the colour was a pale whitish/yellow colour with a hint of red in some of the rays.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than that incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Cairn O Mount au617111jhp 
 Scotland Aurora Borealis arc start display Aberdeenshire Jim Henderson Photograph Boxing Day December Cairn O’Mount 1989 taken from just below the Cairn O’Mount on its North face and which looks northwards towards Deeside. This photo is from the fourth Aurora Display I photographed after my first one in September and the arc started to develop from 22.00 hrs UT onwards. I felt that the summit of the Cairn would be a good vantage point and offer uncluttered views northwards. It was a good light pollution free viewpoint but apart from an occasional passing car, headlights a headache during an exposure, I soon realised that it was along way to go and of course further south of and way from any displays. In some of the photos there are two small lights on the horizon which I reckoned were from a farm on the Hill of Fare several miles to the north. The single dark pole is a snow pole and on the side of the nearby hillside are snow fences. This display was a classic in terms of an Arc, waxing and waning until it reached a point of no return when single and then multiple burst upwards from the arc as well as moving quite rapidly from right to left; East to West. Generally the colour was a pale whitish/yellow colour with a hint of red in some of the rays.

The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the first display I saw. Later tips helped until I started to park at a favourite viewpoint every clear night over the forthcoming years, the days before the Internet, and just watch the night sky.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet and aware that exposures much longer than that incurred the affect of star trail so instead of sharp dots for stars they became lines. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Glen Dye au61065jhp 
 Scotland Aurora Borealis display Clachnaben hill torr Glen Dye autumn September 1989 taken from Heatheryhaugh just above steep climb out of Glen Dye on the road to the Cairn O’Mount and which looks across to Clachnaben, the notable hill with a tor rocky outcrop which makes it visible from much of Deeside when looking south. This photo is one of the first I took of an Aurora display and came just after midnight when clouds cleared and made the stars and night sky visible. The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the display captured here.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, upright, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Glen Dye au610615jhp 
 Scottish Aurora Borealis Glen Dye red purple gas September 1989 slide film taken from Heatheryhaugh just above steep climb out of Glen Dye on the road to the Cairn O’Mount and which looks across to Clachnaben, the notable hill with a tor rocky outcrop which makes it visible from much of Deeside when looking south. This photo is one of the first I took of an Aurora display and came just after midnight when clouds cleared and made the stars and night sky visible. The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the display captured here.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Glen Dye au610613jhp 
 Scotland Aurora Borealis red display Glen Dye earliest first autumn September 1989 taken from Heatheryhaugh just above steep climb out of Glen Dye on the road to the Cairn O’Mount and which looks across to Clachnaben, the notable hill with a tor rocky outcrop which makes it visible from much of Deeside when looking south. This photo is one of the first I took of an Aurora display and came just after midnight when clouds cleared and made the stars and night sky visible. The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the display captured here.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Glen Dye au610612jhp 
 Scottish Aurora Borealis display Plough stars Glen Dye Aberdeenshire first autumn September 1989 taken from Heatheryhaugh just above steep climb out of Glen Dye on the road to the Cairn O’Mount and which looks across to Clachnaben, the notable hill with a tor rocky outcrop which makes it visible from much of Deeside when looking south. This photo is one of the first I took of an Aurora display and came just after midnight when clouds cleared and made the stars and night sky visible. The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the display captured here.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Glen Dye au610611jhp 
 Scotland Northern Lights Ursa Major red rays display Glen Dye earliest first autumn September 1989 taken from Heatheryhaugh just above steep climb out of Glen Dye on the road to the Cairn O’Mount and which looks across to Clachnaben, the notable hill with a tor rocky outcrop which makes it visible from much of Deeside when looking south. This photo is one of the first I took of an Aurora display and came just after midnight when clouds cleared and made the stars and night sky visible. The project to photograph an Aurora came after a missed opportunity earlier in the year in March with what became known as the Big Aurora, a full Corona over Deeside. I had got the idea of trying to photograph a display following on from my success in 1986 of capturing Halley’s Comet thanks to the support of the Astronomy Ian Shepherd at the Edinburgh Observatory. I had heard about the Big Aurora but had missed the display buried away in my darkroom processing B&W photos for the local newspaper. Ian suggested I contact John MacNicol, President of the Aberdeen Astronomy Society and he eventually tipped me off about the display captured here.

I took Fuji RHP 400asa and RSP 11, rated at 1600ASA, the fastest available at the time in 35mm slide film of which this photo is an example and I tried both as well as bracketing exposures around the 20 second mark based on my experiences with photographing the Comet. Instead of a telephoto lens as per the Comet, for Aurora I used my widest lens, a Nikkor 28mm with a f2.8 widest aperture. Push processing the slide film at the Fuji lab by two stops to the equivalent of 1600asa I found that an exposure around 20 second eventually gave the best results for best colour saturation and exposure and giving the maximum control of grain without it appearing washed out from underexposure. This basic arrangement eventually worked best when I moved to a DSLR Fuji S2 in 2003 with an ISO of 1600 giving comparable results to the ASA equivalent and the noise factor was akin to the grain of slide film. As I shot my general landscape work using Fuji I stayed with it for the Aurora although Kodak film was acceptable in quality and results. I felt that the Fuji film handled the reds and greens better anyway and these are in practice the primary colours of Aurora displays when oxygen is excited by the incoming electrons. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Glen, Dye, Cairn, O’Mount, road, Heatheryhaugh, Clachnaben, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, Northern, Lights, Merry Dancers, landscape, photos, photographs, sunspots, solar, flares, CME, electrons, photons, storms, energy, sun, stars, oxygen, gas, Van, Allen, belt, ionosphere, flares, space, molecules, magnetic, disturbance, magnetometers, belts, radiation, purple, red, green, yellow, pink, colourful, colorful, coloured, colored, colours, colors, moon, whirls, celestial, clouds, nature, dark, nights, night-time, forest, 1989, September, December, Boxing, Day, slide, film, Fuji, RHP, RSP11, 400asa, 1600asa, 35mm, time, exposure, Nikon, FM2, wide, angle, lens, 28mm, 24mm, f2.8, scanned, scan, earliest, first, captured
Aurora Deeside bnm1931jhp 
 Merry Dancers Scottish display March green rays stars westerly view Deeside Aberdeenshire taken on the evening of 6th March, 2016 at Crooktree, 25 miles west of Aberdeen, starting around 8.00pm, this one taken at 21.42.29UT and is the first display since the one that spanned the New Year. This photograph was taken with a Nikon D700 full frame DSLR using a 24mm/28mm Nikkor f2.8 lens at f4 aperture and ISO settings of 3200 which allows for shorter exposures circa 12 sec average times giving more accurate recordings of these moving events. The light conditions were sometimes not ideal because of passing snow flurries but the second burst of activity around 9.30 until nearly 10.00pm was in good clear conditions although cold. It had not been telegraphed from the Spaceweather site which was indicating possible displays caused by the solar wind but likely to occur much further North. During the early stage of the arc developing and going active there were several rays above the viewer but not powerful enough to develop into a half Corona. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, Grampian, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Deeside, Torphins, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, bright, patches, Lights, Merry, Dancers, landscape, CME, solar, night, sky, stars, oxygen, gas, molecules, magnetic, green, yellow, red, colourful, colorful, colours, colors, celestial, night, March, 2016, Mother’s Day, D700, Nikon, DSLR, 24mm, 28mm, Nikkor, prime, lens, digital, tripod, time, exposure, photo, photos, photography, photograph
Aurora Deeside bnm1954jhp 
 Aurora Borealis Scotland bright strong green red rays Deeside Aberdeenshire taken on the evening of 6th March, 2016 at Crooktree, 25 miles west of Aberdeen, starting around 8.00pm, this one at 21.51.42UT and is the first display since the one that spanned the New Year. This photograph was taken with a Nikon D700 full frame DSLR using a 24mm/28mm Nikkor f2.8 lens at f4 aperture and ISO settings of 3200 which allows for shorter exposures circa 12 sec average times giving more accurate recordings of these moving events. The light conditions were sometimes not ideal because of passing snow flurries but the second burst of activity around 9.30 until nearly 10.00pm was in good clear conditions although cold. It had not been telegraphed from the Spaceweather site which was indicating possible displays caused by the solar wind but likely to occur much further North. During the early stage of the arc developing and going active there were several rays above the viewer but not powerful enough to develop into a half Corona. 
This particular photograph was an experiment using a 50mm f1.8 lens and using very short exposures of 2-5 secs at 3200ISO as there was substantially more movement in this far more compact area of activity however depth of field effect is significant as seen in the out of focus trees whereas in similar views using the 24mm lens it is hardly noticeable. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, Grampian, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Deeside, Torphins, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, bright, patches, Lights, Merry, Dancers, landscape, bright, CME, solar, night, sky, stars, oxygen, gas, molecules, magnetic, green, yellow, red, colourful, colorful, colours, colors, celestial, night, March, 2016, Mother’s Day, D700, Nikon, DSLR, 24mm, 28mm, Nikkor, prime, lens, digital, tripod, time, exposure, photo, photos, photography, photograph
Aurora Deeside bnm1951jhp 
 Northern Lights Scotland bright red green rays Aberdeenshire March Deeside taken on the evening of 6th March, 2016 at Crooktree, 25 miles west of Aberdeen, starting around 8.00pm, this one at 21.50.59UT, and is the first display since the one that spanned the New Year. This photograph was taken with a Nikon D700 full frame DSLR using a 24mm/28mm Nikkor f2.8 lens at f4 aperture and ISO settings of 3200 which allows for shorter exposures circa 12 sec average times giving more accurate recordings of these moving events. The light conditions were sometimes not ideal because of passing snow flurries but the second burst of activity around 9.30 until nearly 10.00pm was in good clear conditions although cold. It had not been telegraphed from the Spaceweather site which was indicating possible displays caused by the solar wind but likely to occur much further North. During the early stage of the arc developing and going active there were several rays above the viewer but not powerful enough to develop into a half Corona. 
This particular photograph was an experiment using a 50mm f1.8 lens and using very short exposures of 2-5 secs at 3200ISO as there was substantially more movement in this far more compact area of activity however depth of field effect is significant as seen in the out of focus trees whereas in similar views using the 24mm lens it is hardly noticeable. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, Grampian, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Deeside, Torphins, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, bright, patches, Lights, Merry, Dancers, landscape, CME, solar, night, sky, stars, oxygen, gas, molecules, magnetic, green, yellow, red, colourful, colorful, colours, colors, celestial, night, March, 2016, Mother’s Day, D700, Nikon, DSLR, 24mm, 28mm, Nikkor, prime, lens, digital, tripod, time, exposure, photo, photos, photography, photograph
Aurora Deeside bnm1942jhp 
 Aurora Borealis Scotland multiple rays streaming Deeside Aberdeenshire display west taken on the evening of 6th March, 2016 at Crooktree, 25 miles west of Aberdeen, starting around 8.00pm, this one at 21.47.59UT, and is the first display since the one that spanned the New Year. This photograph was taken with a Nikon D700 full frame DSLR using a 24mm/28mm Nikkor f2.8 lens at f4 aperture and ISO settings of 3200 which allows for shorter exposures circa 12 sec average times giving more accurate recordings of these moving events. The light conditions were sometimes not ideal because of passing snow flurries but the second burst of activity around 9.30 until nearly 10.00pm was in good clear conditions although cold. It had not been telegraphed from the Spaceweather site which was indicating possible displays caused by the solar wind but likely to occur much further North. During the early stage of the arc developing and going active there were several rays above the viewer but not powerful enough to develop into a half Corona. 
This particular photograph was an experiment using a 50mm f1.8 lens and using very short exposures of 2-5 secs at 3200ISO as there was substantially more movement in this far more compact area of activity however depth of field effect is significant as seen in the out of focus trees whereas in similar views using the 24mm lens it is hardly noticeable. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, Grampian, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Deeside, Torphins, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, bright, patches, Lights, Merry, Dancers, landscape, CME, solar, streaming, flaring, night, sky, stars, oxygen, gas, molecules, magnetic, green, yellow, red, colourful, colorful, colours, colors, celestial, night, March, 2016, Mother’s Day, D700, Nikon, DSLR, 24mm, 28mm, Nikkor, prime, lens, digital, tripod, time, exposure, photo, photos, photography, photograph
Aurora Deeside bnm1939jhp 
 Aurora Borealis Scottish many flaming rays Jim Henderson Photo experiment taken on the evening of 6th March, 2016 at Crooktree, 25 miles west of Aberdeen, starting around 8.00pm, this one taken at 21.47.37UT, and is the first display since the one that spanned the New Year. This photograph was taken with a Nikon D700 full frame DSLR using a 24mm/28mm Nikkor f2.8 lens at f4 aperture and ISO settings of 3200 which allows for shorter exposures circa 12 sec average times giving more accurate recordings of these moving events. The light conditions were sometimes not ideal because of passing snow flurries but the second burst of activity around 9.30 until nearly 10.00pm was in good clear conditions although cold. It had not been telegraphed from the Spaceweather site which was indicating possible displays caused by the solar wind but likely to occur much further North. During the early stage of the arc developing and going active there were several rays above the viewer but not powerful enough to develop into a half Corona. 
This particular photograph was an experiment using a 50mm f1.8 lens and using very short exposures of 2-5 secs at 3200ISO as there was substantially more movement in this far more compact area of activity however depth of field effect is significant as seen in the out of focus trees whereas in similar views using the 24mm lens it is hardly noticeable. 
 Keywords: Scotland, Scottish, British, Grampian, North, Northern, East, Aberdeenshire, Royal, Deeside, Deeside, Torphins, Aurora, Borealis, Arc, Rays, bright, patches, Lights, Merry, Dancers, landscape, flaming, CME, solar, night, sky, stars, oxygen, gas, molecules, magnetic, green, yellow, red, colourful, colorful, colours, colors, celestial, night, March, 2016, Mother’s Day, D700, Nikon, DSLR, 24mm, 28mm, Nikkor, prime, lens, digital, tripod, time, exposure, photo, photos, photography, photograph

Images 501-520 of 887 displayed. Show 20, 60 or all per page.
Results: << Previous 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Next >>