North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

Stardust

Aurora in the western sky

If you're reading this on Thursday night, get up now, go outside and stare at the sky. There is a wonderful aurora in progress. According to the Astronomy Ireland email alert,

The aurora was caused by a CME (coronal mass ejection) from sunspot group number 484 that has survived a complete rotation around the back of the Sun and is nicely on view again.

At one stage, there was a massive red filament arcing right across the sky from the eastern horizon to the west . It was simply awe-inspiring, and beyond the ability of either my camera or myself to capture its beauty. This is the second time in a month that we've had a celestial display - if there's a spate of births in nine months time of blue-eyed, blond babies with telepathic powers, we'll know what caused it.

The CME happened two days ago. This photograph was taken an hour ago and has not been processed or adjusted - the exposure was 15 seconds at F2. It was taken with a Canon G3 digital camera, which is a recent purchase. It is better equipped than my EOS SLR camera and the quality of the images is fantastic. Yes, it was a bit pricey, but deep down, I know Herself didn't really want a holiday next year.

UPDATE 24th November: I 've posted a small gallery here.

Dust thou art, to dust returnst. Aurora in the eastern sky

This photo was taken looking towards the east, in a local graveyard. When I suggested to Herself that she might..um..like to keep me company while I set up among the headstones, her response was (roughly) "are you mad - a graveyard? At night?" Curiously, she had no problem with me traipsing around the graveyard, where I slowly froze. To make matters worse, one of the legs fell off my so-called indestructible tripod (a Benbo) - the bloody thing is only 9 years old.

Posted by Monasette at November 20, 2003 08:50 PM