A Scottish Aurora

Looking up at night is something we seldom do in Scotland. It is cold and often cloudy, with Glasgow light pollution taking away much of the joy in it. The Aurora Borealis is often active in Northern Europe, only sometimes above Scotland and very rarely so when it is crisp and clear.

The chance that we were free, able and with a clear night when the Northern Lights danced over southern Scotland was therefore too good of an opportunity to miss.

On Tuesday 7 November 2017, we saw the alert via the very helpful auroraalerts twitter account, and were on the road within 10 minutes. We headed out of Glasgow for only 20 minutes, to a parking lot at The Whangie – a place we knew had a clear, dark view to the north.

We pulled into the carpark just in time, with a few other hopeful aurora hunters already parked. Camera just set up and eyes fixed on the northern horizon, the sky started to dance.

For only ten minutes the sky turned from a sparkling black to a mesmerizing luminescent green and then to a fluorescent purple – so bright that the long exposure on my camera couldn’t process it correctly.

We watched the green dance to purple and back again, in awe of the beauty of the lights for only a few wonderful minutes. We could hardly believe how lucky we were to experience that moment. The lights of the city only ten miles behind us, our cups of tea barely cooling back at home, and we had made it here for this special scene.

Just a quickly as they had come, the lights faded, turning green to teal to black. We packed up and bid farewell to our fellow hunters, until the next time the lights choose to dance on an unassuming evening.

It was one of the most truly spntaneous, special and spectacular experiences of our time in Scotland.