| Brentwood Gazette | - |
Last week's aurora is thought to have resulted from an unusually strong pulse of solar energy and geomagnetic activity, and could be seen across Essex and Norfolk, and even as far south as Jersey.
Unseen images of the Northern Lights captured by Pilgrims Hatch snapper
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Posted: March 04, 2014
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PREVIOUSLY unreleased images of the northern lights casting
their eerie green glow above Mountnessing Windmill have been captured by
a local photographer.
These images showing the lights of the aurora borealis – rarely seen as far south as England – were taken by Pilgrims Hatch-based snapper Peter Scott on Thursday evening.
Peter, 44, has seen the celestial phenomenon several times in the past two years, including in Scotland, the Arctic Circle, and even in Maldon in July 2012.
But last week’s event was the clearest and most spectacular example of the northern lights he has seen at this latitude.
The BT Openreach engineer, who lives in Ashwells Road, told the Gazette: “My friend in Norfolk rang me and said I should be able to see it.
“So I poked a camera out of the window here in Pilgrims Hatch. You could see the sky was red, so at that point I went down to the windmill in Mountnessing.
I’ve seen the aurora quite a lot but I’ve only seen it this far south once before in Maldon – but not like this. To see the aurora this far south is pretty impressive really, especially as elevated as it was.”
Auroras are associated with the solar wind, and are a flow of charged ions flowing outward from the Sun, which are trapped by the earth’s magnetic field.
The ions are accelerated towards Earth at the poles, and the collision between these ions and atmospheric atoms cause energy to be released in the form of light.
Last week’s aurora is thought to have resulted from an unusually strong pulse of solar energy and geomagnetic activity, and could be seen across Essex and Norfolk, and even as far south as Jersey.
Peter’s first image was taken at 8.15pm, and the second at about 10pm at Mountnessing Windmill, when the next flurry of activity made an appearance across the night sky.
Using a £2,000 Canon 5D Mk3, Peter has been to Iceland several times to capture the northern lights.
He said: “I go to Iceland primarily to photograph the aurora. It’s got the scenery and landscape there, which is quite epic.”
As well as focusing on the benign effects of the sun, he is a regular storm chaser in America.
Last spring he found himself less than a mile from the tornado that caused devastation in the town of Moore in Oklahoma.
And ten days later he found himself in El Reno, Oklahoma, in the path of the largest tornado ever recorded – at two-and-a-half-miles across.
He said: “I was thinking this is too dangerous, we need to get away and see tomorrow. But this photographing of the Aurora is not as life-threatening.”
To see more of Peter’s images visit chasethestorm.com
end quote from:
These images showing the lights of the aurora borealis – rarely seen as far south as England – were taken by Pilgrims Hatch-based snapper Peter Scott on Thursday evening.
Peter, 44, has seen the celestial phenomenon several times in the past two years, including in Scotland, the Arctic Circle, and even in Maldon in July 2012.
But last week’s event was the clearest and most spectacular example of the northern lights he has seen at this latitude.
The BT Openreach engineer, who lives in Ashwells Road, told the Gazette: “My friend in Norfolk rang me and said I should be able to see it.
“So I poked a camera out of the window here in Pilgrims Hatch. You could see the sky was red, so at that point I went down to the windmill in Mountnessing.
I’ve seen the aurora quite a lot but I’ve only seen it this far south once before in Maldon – but not like this. To see the aurora this far south is pretty impressive really, especially as elevated as it was.”
Auroras are associated with the solar wind, and are a flow of charged ions flowing outward from the Sun, which are trapped by the earth’s magnetic field.
The ions are accelerated towards Earth at the poles, and the collision between these ions and atmospheric atoms cause energy to be released in the form of light.
Last week’s aurora is thought to have resulted from an unusually strong pulse of solar energy and geomagnetic activity, and could be seen across Essex and Norfolk, and even as far south as Jersey.
Peter’s first image was taken at 8.15pm, and the second at about 10pm at Mountnessing Windmill, when the next flurry of activity made an appearance across the night sky.
Using a £2,000 Canon 5D Mk3, Peter has been to Iceland several times to capture the northern lights.
He said: “I go to Iceland primarily to photograph the aurora. It’s got the scenery and landscape there, which is quite epic.”
As well as focusing on the benign effects of the sun, he is a regular storm chaser in America.
Last spring he found himself less than a mile from the tornado that caused devastation in the town of Moore in Oklahoma.
And ten days later he found himself in El Reno, Oklahoma, in the path of the largest tornado ever recorded – at two-and-a-half-miles across.
He said: “I was thinking this is too dangerous, we need to get away and see tomorrow. But this photographing of the Aurora is not as life-threatening.”
To see more of Peter’s images visit chasethestorm.com
end quote from:
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