Friday the 5th of May 2024 is a night I shall never forget, this was the most epic night for photography ever, and it saved me going to Iceland lol.
A friend of mine contacted me and asked if I was going out to look for the Aurora as it had been forecast for a great storm that evening, it was really cloudy all day but I told him that I would go but will keep an eye out on the weather, as you know with aurora, it's not always predictable, especially in England.
We headed out around 9.30pm to North Leverton Windmill, one of my favourite places and I knew this was a great dark sky area, despite two power stations being in the vicinity. As we got there, the moon and stars were shining brightly, still a bit light around 10.20pm, but we stood there with baited breath, my girlfriend went as well and she noticed a bit of green in the sky, we all looked as there were other people there, and thought YES!!!!
As it started, it was mainly just a green sky, still spectacular in all accounts, but around 45 minutes later, it really did kick off!!
Bearing in mind, you can't see the aurora like a camera can, you could still make out the colours etc, it was phenomenal, seeing the aurora dance across the sky is something that I will never forget, I am still buzzing two days later from the experience.
(A tear in space)
Everyone there, other than my girlfriend I'd never bet before, but we all enjoyed that experience, making new friends, and I had a good chat with the guy who lived in the windmill cottage, great bloke and photographer too.
Breathtaking, exciting and also making you feel humble, I do love space stuff.
I thought I saw an angel, I love this fairytale shot, I just wish the window wasn't blown out lol.
This was the most powerful solar storm for over 20 years, classed as a G5 solar storm which is the highest you can get. I have seen the aurora before, the last time was round 24 years ago flyng from Canada back to England, watching them over Greenland and Iceland, I though that was epic, I never thought for once I would see anything as powerful as this in the UK.
Looking at my instagram feed, most of the UK and Europe must have been out photographing the Aurora, I just hope you all like these shots.
On the way back, fuel was low, I was tired and ended up making a wrong turn, we set off home around midnight, but we still did well for time as I realised where we were, I wouldn't have minded but every garage we passed was closed, but thankfully we made it home, tired, humble and happy.
One thing I was so surprised about was just how powerful the storm was, I was only shooting at ISO 800, 10 Sec exposure and around F4 on my 14mm Samyang F/2.8 lens, this was on my Sony A7iii camera.
Thanks for reading this blog, I hope you all have a wonderful week.
Stay humble.