Last week, we had a pretty special event for those in the Northern or Southern latitudes. A coronal mass ejection (CME) flung charged particles out into space and right into the Earth. When it arrived, it was diverted by Earth’s magnetic field into the north and south poles. So far, that’s fairly common. However, the speed of the ejection (G5 rated) meant that the they overwhelmed the magnetic field and sent particles into the sky as far south as Southern England, Germany, Ireland and quite a lot of Australia and New Zealand (although in a turn up for the history books, Scotland had clear skies and it was overcast in parts of Australia!).

As I’m not particularly good with astrophotography, I only had a look out of the window, but one of my colleagues, Richard Fox, went out to some fields near Stirling and got the stunning photograph you see below. I’m sure you’ve seen more than a couple of aurora images in the last few days and I also hope you got your chance to see an aurora for the first time. As much as some photographers are a bit negative about it as a photographic subject, it has to be said that it is one of the wonders of the world and I can only imagine what our ancient ancestors would make of it! (you have to presume Bifrost, the shimmering path to Midgard, might have been the aurora).

Richard Fox | Looking South from Kippen, Stirling

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