Third Time Lucky!

Good morning all.

Monday night was scheduled to be a humdinger for aurora watchers...however the weather decided not to play ball over most of Scotland and we also had the super moon to contend with.

Here on the east coast we were luckier than most with only light cloud for most of the evening, so I got the camera set up ready to go out with eldest. This in itself proved a bit of a task as I'd not yet used the long exposure setting, so had to consult the manual and of course I couldn't find the bit I needed! I got there in the end though then discovered Gary was going off to a friends to watch The Walking Dead!!!

I mean to say how could this be preferable to standing outside on a cold, dark winters night with your mother!

So I set off up the old mill road in the garden to see what I could see and take a few practise shots.

What did I see...not alot...rookie error number one, this numpty left the lens cap on!!! 

(Pray tell me everyone does that at least once in their lives?)

Not a good start but I got set up and pointed the camera WEST....rookie error number two! 

Not seeing anything I swivelled the tripod round and took some photos of the sunhouse bathed in moonlight, then pointed at the parish church which I could see lit up in the distance. After a few more shots I headed home and downloaded the shots to my iPad...a very slow manoeuvre, during which eldest arrived home.

As I flicked through the shots I marvelled at the fact I'd eventually managed to get something fairly in focus (need lots more practise at this!) and I had a decent shot of the sunhouse. Looking more closely a second time I thought I saw some green above the parish church...and lo and behold I'd unwittingly just captured my first aurora!

I think Gary was a little green too as when we went back up there was nothing to see!

Carol x