October Visit to Herefordshire - Part 1: Hatfield and the Aurora Borealis

 

E was on holiday from work last week and wanted to come with us to Herefordshire for a few days when we had the boiler service done.

We travelled on the Tuesday and did the usual click and collect at Morrisons, Leominster in the afternoon. Wednesday was the day of the boiler service and gas safety check.  At least this time it all went to plan!  Sadly, there is a major part in the boiler which is not working as efficiently as it should which might in the future mean a rather expensive repair or a new boiler but I am trying not to worry about that at the moment!

Thursday we visited Queenswood Arboretum which I will write about in a separate post and we came home Friday afternoon.

Aspen trees at the caravan site  - the leaves have turned a beautiful shade of lemon.

The Herefordshire Oak - perhaps a slight autumn tint in some of the leaves?

The Octopus Tree

The Constable Tree

I've picked a few teasels from the garden to dry and put in a vase but I've left plenty on the plant for the birds.

Autumn means mushrooms and toadstools. I've no idea what this species this. So many fungi look similar so unless they are distinctive looking I really struggle over id.

Acer in the garden

On the Thursday evening  we kept going outside to look for the Northern Lights/Aurora Borealis as I had seen there was a red alert from Aurora UK on Twitter that there might be possible sightings.  A red alert tends to mean there is a good chance you can see them anywhere in the UK.  For ages we couldn't see anything at all although it was a bit cloudy to the North where they tend to appear. But then B went outside after the football and said there is a pink glow in the sky to the North East.

We watched the Aurora Borealis for over an hour as the display got better and better and spread to the North as the clouds disappeared. You could see red columns and in places a tinge of green even with the naked eye. I was totally awestruck it is something B and I have always wanted to see and I have looked for them so many times this year without success.  Hatfield is ideal as apart from a few solar lights on the site there is no light pollution.  I was just upset D wasn't with us to witness it too.

The photos are only record shots as the camera was hand held and I used a long exposure of 13 seconds and iso 6400 hence the graininess.  Of course I should have got the tripod and also put the camera on night setting mode but to be honest I was just too excited.

The Northern Lights are appearing more frequently this year as the sun nears the peak of an 11 year cycle.  The number of sunspots on the sun is increasing and there are more Coronal Mass Ejections  (CME's) from the sun. This results in a stream of ions (electrically charged particles) travelling in a solar wind. Aurora Borealis displays occur when this reaches the earth and the ions collide with gases (such as oxygen and nitrogen) in the atmosphere. This leads to light being emitted at different wavelengths as the gases release energy creating the Northern Lights.

In most years the aurora is only seen near the Arctic Circle in the Northern Hemisphere but the number of  large solar CME's has meant it can be seen over much larger areas.

All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera. (I don't particularly rate my photos but if anyone wishes to use one of mine or my son's I would be grateful for an email first - thanks).