Aurora, Southern England, 6 Oct 2024 22:00
Aurora Borelais
It may be my once-in-a-lifetime experience but this is the best photo I could muster given the light pollution and clouds. I knew it must be there, it was all over social media, they all said they could ‘see’ it. Truth be told, I stood there, eyes glued to the sky, searching for the green glow of dancing ribbons of light as minutes turned into an hour, but I saw nothing, not a hint of colour. There was no “wow”, no “amazing”, none of the adjectives that flooded my social media feed from neighbours in the same moment who apparently had better ‘luck’; it was a disappointment.
In exasperation, desperation even, I tried a long exposure just to see if a push of the saturation and contrast sliders would reveal anything and voila! I looked back at the sky but there was still nothing more than a disappointing grey sky with a thin veil of pale clouds reflecting our light pollution.
It turns out aurora hunting in southern England is a lesson in disappointment and mastering long-exposure photography. Norway in the winter, here we come!
Photo details - iPhone 16 Pro 24mm(equiv) f1.78 3.4secs. Processed in Apple photos
In exasperation, desperation even, I tried a long exposure just to see if a push of the saturation and contrast sliders would reveal anything and voila! I looked back at the sky but there was still nothing more than a disappointing grey sky with a thin veil of pale clouds reflecting our light pollution.
It turns out aurora hunting in southern England is a lesson in disappointment and mastering long-exposure photography. Norway in the winter, here we come!
Photo details - iPhone 16 Pro 24mm(equiv) f1.78 3.4secs. Processed in Apple photos