Scozmo's Photery

Stand by folks, this is an Aurora Borealis post, some may be fed up of seeing the many, many images shared all over (anti) social media recently but, it was a heck of a show! Not quite as impressive as May 2024 but probably a greater visibility across the entire UK, barring local weather conditions.

January 19th 2026 – I saw the alert on my Glendale App and went outside around 19:40, set up a tripod and took a couple of test shots see what might show up, it looked overcast and cloudy.

It was but, the first shot showed this deep red glow behind the cloud so, I set up the time-lapse for 15 second intervals and 6 seconds exposure @ ISO800 / f3.2. I think I then walked away and left the camera doing its thing for an hour.

The alerts were coming in thick and fast, almost the entire country covered by green ticks i.e. Got Aurora.

I walked out just before the session was due to end it was blatantly obvious that the sky was slowly clearing, I could see bright red with the naked eye, that doesn’t happen often!

You can see how bright it was to the camera, my settings were fine for the dark sky at the start but too slow and high for this kind of show so, I whipped back inside, off-loaded the time-lapse set to the Mac, 242 images; whizzed back outside and started tweaking settings, grabbing shows etc.

Well. Both of those last two images were taken at 20:46 so I just checked the EXIF data in the background; I must’ve really must have moved. Both shots within the same minute and allowing for a transfer to the computer in the house! You’ll note that the second shot is quite a bit darker, I’d lowered the ISO with a view to getting the cleanest but fastest shots for clarity.

So it began, we were both outside by now and trying with the phone at the same time. I always get kind of lost in these moments, what i really needed was two cameras (which I have) and two wide lenses, which i don’t.

Just ordered a 10mm!

I always want to capture the full width of these displays and the 13mm just can’t do it. For those interested, it’s a Viltrox AF 13/1.4 Z(Nikon). I was trying to get panorama shots by panning West to East taking three to four at each point, I merge them in Photoshop(PS) in the editing. I also wanted to reduce the editing needed in an attempt to show what we were watching as near to what we actually saw. Remember that the lens / camera sees more than the human eye in the right conditions, Aurora is often invisible to the naked eye, this wasn’t!

This panorama consists of three shots stitched together by PS. You may be able to tell how high this was displaying, the lights of the houses are just visible at the bottom of this shot.

Both of the above shots are vertical panorama, in an attempt capture the height of the show as well as the spread. I must work on my panorama skills.

I started making more panorama shots, switching start / finish points and height. The lights of the houses act as a focal point for me but also cause issues in their brightness so it’s a balancing act.

These are mostly taken from the patio next to the house and I wanted to include some part of the house as a reference, so the right of that pano is probably due North.

Here I’ve extended out to the NW in an attempt to get the full width of the display, not quite 🙂

I am also trying to keep these as dark as possible without losing the show, we could clearly see the reds but the greens were like a very bright greyish colour.

And, while all this is going on, I am trying to keep an eye above, behind and to the far left / right; the show in May 2024 ended up all over the sky, including due South, which was truly amazing.

I couldn’t get a pano shot to include those green offshoots to the West but I love it when “other” things start to happen.

Another vertical panorama shot, the sky above was getting redder all the time.

I stepped down off the patio, carefully, I couldn’t see the ground particularly well and I was in slip-on slippers!!!

This shot was looking along the back of the house, towards the East, the red was almost directly overhead at this point.

Looking West at the same time …

Another little offshoot trying to get going. I could NOT take all of it in without turning my head!

Almost 180 degrees in that one.

The wee wummin was along the back of the house, ooohing and aaahing along with me.

So my last shot and I’m not sure now why I stopped, maybe I was losing extremities? It was a bit chilly out there 🙂

That one is definitely a 180, East to West. (ish)

Maybe it was just the cold? I went in but didn’t last 15 minutes before i just had to go back out! 🙂

The clouds had rolled back in again but the sky!!!???

We’ve been here almost four years now and I do not remember a cloudy sky being lit up like that before. I shared a few shots on my Mastodon account ( a much nicer place to socialize) and someone said their children had been asking about the green sky…. I’d bet that above those clouds was an amazing display!

I probably could do a 360 image but this might cover it, the entire sky in every direction was glowing green, pretty eerie i must say.

That little pale area to the left is the nearest town 4 miles away.

Looking down the lane …..

A pretty spooky evening all around, literally.

I gave up at that point; I could stand out there all night in the hope that the cloud would clear but the weather app said no and it’s never wrong, right? 😉

I was totally happy to have had any weather window to see and capture that display, our forecast is currently for cloud and rain for at least three days!!!!!! Really? Then again, who is it keeps saying, we need it? 😉

Stay safe and well.

beautiful sky