Thanks to Paul's e-mail alerts I kept an eye out but it was cloudy, or light rain, for most of the evening. The cloud only started to break after 10 PM, though it was obvious through the gaps that an aurora was in progress.
For a time it seemed like midsummer twilight across the entire northern horizon shining through the clouds. At one point it clouded over completely and that looked like it might be the end of the show. However around midnight most of the cloud dissipated and it stayed clear for the rest of the night. The sky was then fairly transparent with a limiting mag of 5 to 6.
Most of the time the aurora was just a quiet, slightly greenish, glow with occasional rays and red patches forming. The most active periods didn't last more than about 10 minutes or so, some of the rays came and went within a minute or two.
The display was completely over by 2am and no further activity was seen before dawn. There was a good hard frost on the car in the morning !
I didn't record the times but most of these shots were taken between midnight and 1 AM on 30th October 2003. Mostly 20-30 seconds at F3.5 on Kodak Ultra (ASA400) , which is simply what I happened to have spare at the time.
Unfortunately under these conditions film doesn't respond the same way the human eye does, so the colours were not as intense as some of the stronger images would suggest. Even so the colours were quite distinct to the naked eye, particularly the contrast between the red emission and skyglow from towns in the distance. The extent of the aurora and all the structures recorded on film were also easily visible.
Although this display wasn't as impressive as the one in April 2000 it was still well worth waiting up for. |