This evening was a real battle with the cloud! My first photographs taken just after 22:20 UTC illustrate this perfectly, with the entire sky appearing green through the tiny gaps in the cloud to the north (Image 1). By 22:28 I was able to see some aurora directly overhead of my location though a partial gap in the cloud (Image 2), and the vivid green band was swirling in the sky with a few scattered tall rays. These tantalising glimpses continued until a better gap in the cloud appeared and a full rayed band of aurora could be observed (Image 3). A while later I could see some intense aurora activity going on very low down on the west horizon, and captured a burst of intense rays with a pink lower fringe out to sea in the north-west (Image 4). It appeared that this was might have been the western end of the band that had pushed further southwards.
From 22:59 there was another period of strong auroral activity coming overhead and shifting to the north again (Images 4 to 8), including a very intense rayed band to the north at 23:03 that had a very bright pink lower edge that was clearly visible to my eye (and, unusually, to my partner’s eyes!). After 23:08 the activity reduced and for much of the remaining time until I went home at 23:40 then it was mostly rather weak and in unstructured appearance, comprising a green glow across much of the northern half of the sky (and weak fragments overhead). Sometimes there were isolated taller rays visible to the naked eye, but mostly it was just a pale greenish glow across much of the sky. The camera did a little better than my eyes at locating structure amongst this glow (Image 9).
Image 1. 22:26 UTC. Taken at: ISO = 3200, f/2.8 @ 14 mm, exposure = 12 sec. Looking north.
Image 2. 22:35 UTC. Taken at: ISO = 1600, f/2.8 @ 14 mm, exposure = 7.8 sec. Looking directly upwards.
Image 3. 22:38 UTC. Taken at: ISO = 1600, f/2.8 @ 14 mm, exposure = 6.6 sec. Looking north-west.
Image 4. 22:48 UTC. Taken at: ISO = 1600, f/2.8 @ 14 mm, exposure = 13 sec. Looking west/north-west.
Image 5. 22:59 UTC. Taken at: ISO = 1600, f/2.8 @ 14 mm, exposure = 6.4 sec. Looking north-west.
Image 6. 23:00 UTC. Taken at: ISO = 1600, f/2.8 @ 14 mm, exposure = 8 sec. Looking north-west.
Image 7. 23:02 UTC. Taken at: ISO = 1600, f/2.8 @ 14 mm, exposure = 8.2 sec. Looking west.
Image 8. 23:03 UTC. Taken at: ISO = 1600, f/2.8 @ 14 mm, exposure = 2.5 sec. Looking north-west.
Image 9. 23:24 UTC. Taken at: ISO = 1600, f/2.8 @ 14 mm, exposure = 16 sec. Looking north.
