Moonrise

There are aspects of winter to look forward to, like relaxing in the evenings in front of an open fire, and the dark, still nights when I stand on the terrace last thing before bed to listen to the silence and look up at the stars - and winter is approaching. By ten yesterday evening it was completely dark, until the moon started to rise over Ben Hiant, taking its time to work through a line of cloud along the horizon. While some stars were visible, most of the sky was covered with a thin, rumpled blanket of high cloud, through which two high-flying aeroplanes had left ghostly contrails.

Winter is the time for seeing the auroras which have been carrying on, invisibly, all summer. Last night saw a minor event - this graph is taken from the AuroraWatch UK site - which started too late for me to see it, though it would have been dimmed by light from the waning full moon. So, as of now, part of the nightly process of catching an aurora is to check the Aurora Europe site, which carries a three-day forecast.