Valentine's Night Aurora Display - Feb 14th

[martinastro]

Beautiful aurora display last night for over 1.5 hours in excess of 30 degrees high. Fantastic structure changing by the second. Conor McDonald, Declan O'Doherty and I watched it from the snowy Glenshane Pass on a bitter cold night. The aurora was easily visible despite the moonlight and looked amazing above the snow, it felt like being on an Icelandic aurora tour. A few images...

[JohnC]

Amazing photos,Martin.,they look great. I'll book a tour in  NI instead of Iceland lol. MuchCheaper. It rained most of the night here.

[markt]

Stunning images Martin!  Glad you got them, they look really good - like John, just rain for me....

[martinastro]

Thanks guys!, a decent aurora it was too and at its best between 21.00 and 22.00, first fairly high display since 2005. This is the start of biggers things to come, CMEs from M and X class flares are inbound so there could be aurora chances for any night (s) this week so fingers crossed for clear skies 

[paulster78]

Martin these are really stunning images, the snow covered landscape has really made them. Congrats on Spaceweather and BBC Newsline this evening-Cecilia was really impressed!!

Thanks for the tip-off yesterday evening via text, i headed out soon after that in search of my first aurora in 10 years-i wasn't disappointed.  Freezing temps from my location with a strong breeze which was murder on the fingers especially as i had to hold the tripod steady. Heres a few images, if you look hard enough you can see Martin and co on top of that snow-capped mountain in the distance lol   

[martinastro]

Paul, these are great images, you captured the green colour perfectly as well as the three horizontal bands and vertical rays in the second image which is my favourite. I'm delighted you got to see and photograph the aurora after a ten year wait, Pigeon Top was a great choice, and there's bigger and brighter displays to come 

Ah, lower right, the snow topped mountains, three of us were standing on that freezing in the snow, but at least we didn't have any wind which yougot, that ,must have been a nightmare. Conrgats on getting those images in such bitter conditions.

Thanks regarding the Spaceweather and BBC mention, yes Cecilia seemed to like them 

[Anton]

These are spectacular Martin and Paul what a joy to capture and well worth enduring the bitter cold conditions well done.

[martinastro]

Thanks Anton 

[Roman White]

Well done guys! It does really seem that there is little need to go to Iceland. 

Any news from the Friday's storm?

[martinastro]

Hi Roman, it hit during the early morning hours and was at its best during daylight from here. There was another last night but cloud and rain destroyed any chances of seeing them. Had their been clear skies we would have had three nights of auroras here this week. There will be more to come though 

[Big Dipper]

Congrats Paul & Martin. Braving the elements has obviously paid you both substantial dividends.

Talking of aurora, did anyone see the superb shot by a Stewart Watt of Caithness on the March Sky at Night cover disk? Absolutely breathtaking - especially when viewed in the dark!

Here's the link to the iage of the guy's own personal website (image taken in November 2010):
http://www2.clikpic.com/StewartWatt/images/Auroraweb.jpg