Aurora

Yet another picture of a sunrise, this one courtesy of Kilchoan Early Bird, but it illustrates what a clear night we had last night.  With the air temperature dropping to 2C, we had the winter's first ground frost.

The local robins are busy at the moment staking out their territories for the long winter ahead, though the noise this little one was making might have been as much from the effort being made to stay warm - but just look at the colour of that early-morning sky.

All yesterday evening texts were coming in from AuroraWatch warning of increased geomagnetic activity.  With the high ridge of Druim na Gearr Leacainn obscuring our view to the north, all we could see was a greenish glow.  Many thanks to those kind people along the north coast who phoned to give us updates, but the event didn't seem spectacular enough to warrant a run out in the car.... until a text with a red alert woke us at 1.30am.

So we drove up to the Kilmory turn at about 2.00am, to a point which gave us a good view across the Lesser Isles, to be treated to a spectacular if not colourful display.  It started as an arc of light quite high above the horizon, running from northeast to northwest.  Through this pulses of light radiated upwards, rather like the shock waves from explosions, something we have never seen before.  Steadily the light grew, pale greys with pinks and greens, until the aurora resembled a storm front, with beams of light pulsing upwards and bright sheets, like the rain out of a thundercloud, falling to the horizon.

It was eerie enough standing in the darkness watching the event unfold, but the Ardnamurchan Estate stags added to the atmosphere by calling all around us, while two shooting stars fell through the aurora to the northern horizon.

Sadly, The Diary has yet to learn how to work a camera in these conditions, but the AuroraWatch Flickr website has lots of pictures coming in, though the photo that most resembles what we saw is here.  These aurora events are now happening thick and fast as we move towards the maximum of the sun's 11-year sunspot cycle.