Light streams down in bright unbroken beams

Mum messaged me last night, when I was already in bed but sleep procrastinating with YouTube videos, saying to look out of the window and take photos because there was a(nother) display of Aurora Borealis!

It has been very many years since the great aurora of 6 April 2000, when my brother had phoned from a friend's house, excitedly saying to go outside and look up.  I had never seen something so amazing in the sky before – nor have I since.  There have been many displays of course, ostensibly above Scotland but invariably with too much cloud.  Aurora were visible from Midlothian and East Lothian just a few days ago but I found out too late.  This time I leapt out of bed and grabbed my big camera, flung open the window and fired off a couple of dozen shots.

This isn't quite my steadiest photo – I was resting my camera on the window frame and trying to keep still for eight seconds – but it is quite the most colourful, with the wispy curtain appearance just visible, and the scarlet and crimson hues somewhat visible above the greens.  Wikipedia tells me this is because of the lower oxygen content of the high atmosphere, while green is the result of more oxygen atoms, and our own eyes being most receptive to those frequencies.  My extra, a whole 13 seconds long, is sharper though.  I've gently teased out more sky contrast which has brought out the stars more.

Of course, I had forgotten to update the time in my camera to BST, so blipfoto thinks this was yesterday's photograph, which I suppose it kind of was but technically it counts as this morning.