Monday 7 March 2016

Oh, what a night!

Well, it's not late December, and neither is it 1963, but we do often experience four seasons in a day.

However, yesterday evening, whilst I was at the airport waiting for Our Lass to return to Orkney from visiting Second Born in jolly old M of K, I received a text stating somewhat briefly and to the point,

"Aurora. Now."

Funnily enough, at Tense Towers, the usual fly in the ointment of any aurora spotting is the rather well-lit airport. So, here was I, slap bang in the middle of Light Pollution Central, with nary a chance of seeing anything.

To put it bluntly, "Boreas!"

I texted a few other folk to help spread the word about the Northern Lights and waited patiently by staring at the Arrivals screen.

With Our Lass safely back on terra firma, we scooted home, me intent on getting there as fast as reasonably possible, she intent on not telling me what she could see out of the passenger window, in case I crashed the car.

Although it was freezing outside, and occasional snow flurries interrupted proceedings, there was an amazing display. The below photos are of the view west from our front door.



Eventually, I realised that the lounge window faces west, so we decamped inside to continue watching in the warm, whilst drinking a mug of hot chocolate. We're not very gung ho aurora chasers at all.

4 comments:

Spadger said...

Luvly! Adequate diversion too from the coffee table!

Imperfect and Tense said...

Ah, can't drink coffee at that time of night ;o)

biobabbler said...

Whoa--so, now I"m jealous of your aurora goodies as WELL as your coastal proximity. Wow!! Super duper stunning. Officially saw it once when I was in Montana (on a fire assignment when Montana & Idaho were on fire) and I was v. happy about it, but it was just white light behind the hills, no showy colors. Thank you for sharing those WONDERS. =)

Imperfect and Tense said...

I keep the colours as true to eye, and resist being tempted by tweaking for lurid hues. With the longer days (it'll soon be the Spring equinox), the aurora season is drawing to a close.