Yet more auroras

  As I mentioned in the last post, most of the last week had been pretty poor weather wise, I also said that we were due for a clear day/night.  Well on Thursday it happened, the sky had cleared and was due to stay that way for most of the night, fingers crossed. Keeping a close eye on Spacew, I waited for Catriona to come home and then I headed off northwards. I decided to go up to Saxavord first to see what it looked like towards Muckle Flugga lighthouse. There was a bit of activity but there was too much wind and also to much open moorland 'in the way'. I decided to go to over to Lamba Ness where at least the old RAF buildings could act as a wind break. I spent over two hours there and it was one of the best auroras I've seen - almost as good as last September. It wasn't that there was lots of colour, more the constant changing shapes of the curtains or veils. I'd not seen them swirling around quite so much before. It reminded me of maybe 'stage ice' being blow around or maybe a timelapse film of cloud movement except that this was in real time. I think on this occasion I'd have been better off leaving the camera for 2 or 3 hours doing a time-lapse rather than single images......................

Looking north over to Skaw from Lamba Ness at 11.30pm

  Despite it being quite sunny over the last few days, its been deceptively cold - which has been down to a wind chill. Checking the thermometer at the side of the shed the other morning, the coldest its dropped to has only been -3 degrees but it's certainly felt much colder. Yesterday morning I was very surprised to see a powder coating of snow on Setters Hill and Clibberswick, it didn't last and had gone in an hour...................

The old jetty - minus the sheep fence :)

  Last night (17th March) there was yet another alert for the 'Mirrie Dancers'. I looked out just before 11.30pm and saw the green glow to the north from the house. I took this one from the field to the south just before I headed up to the north of the island and away from the street lighting.......

  Getting up to Lamba Ness just before midnight, it clouded in, poured with rain for 10 minutes, then cleared up again,  but no aurora - time for bed I think !

   Robbie