Last weekend – as I’m sure everyone knows from all the social media posts – we experienced a severe solar storm, the first in 19 years. It was caused by a sunspot roughly 16x the diameter of Earth and its accompanying solar flares and coronal mass ejections. As a result of the storm’s severity, the aurora borealis (or northern lights) were much more visible and could be seen abnormally far south, with sightings made even in London. I learnt of the storm on Friday evening and rushed out of Glasgow in the hope of catching a glimpse of this elusive phenomena…
Last year my flat attempted to view the northern lights, but unfortunately due to unfavourable weather conditions and some navigational error (I’m looking at you Ollie) we didn’t see anything, and were instead wandering the fields in darkness until 1am even though Ewan had an essay due the next day. After this I had fairly low expectations for the weekend, but decided to give it my best shot.
Upon checking a light pollution map I identified Conic Hill on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond as an ideal location. The hill stands at 361m and commands a good view of the surrounding area, plus it had a convenient car park at the bottom. The journey over was fun and I had to resist the temptation to pretend I was a rally car driver. Upon arrival, it was almost dark and there were still clouds to the north which was not a promising sign.
The climb took about 45 minutes and I reached the summit just as the light faded. I only encountered two other people who had already set up their cameras some distance from the top, otherwise the night was warm and quiet. Forecasts suggested that the lights would appear around 11pm and continue til 2 in the morning, with nothing visible yet I set up my Fuji and contemplated the decisions that led me to sit in darkness on a rather uncomfortable rock. Fortunately, this contemplation was quickly brought to an end by an audible gasp from the other photographers. I looked up, and dancing above me was a curtain of colours. While much brighter and more saturated on camera, thanks to the lack of light pollution I could make out the aurora shimmering and shifting between greens and blues with my naked eye. I spent almost 2 hours enjoying and photographing the spectacle, at which point cloud cover increased and the lights faded.
After a spectacular night and a lot of photos I headed back to the car, spotting a rather surprised frog along the way. Saturday was spent editing and I was very happy with the results, some of which I have included here. I hope you enjoyed this article, if you’d like to be emailed next time I post then be sure to sign up below!
Patrick Kyak 