On the 27th of February 2023 I was on location in my wee camper van in Torridon which was chilled to the bone in temperatures of minus 10 to -12 degrees Celcius and covered in a thick hoar frost. I had hunkered down for the night in a wee woodland glade and to my astonishment I saw what appeared to be greenish search lights moving around over the top of one of Torridons finest mountains namely Liathach. It slowly dawned on me that this was the aurora and of course I had no warning because there was zero internet signal. It became rapidly apparent that this must be a massive display as the bulk and summit of Liathach virtually obscured my view of the northern hemisphere looming as it did directly in front of me.
The following morning the internet chatter about the astonishing display of Northern Lights was rife and I learned that it was seen as far South as Cornwall. It appeared that a further show might occur the following night so I resolved to go to Mellon Udrigle and take a chance on a repeat performance.
What you see below is the strongest display of full spectrum colour Northern lights I have ever witnessed irrespective of location, home or abroad. Purple, yellow, green and red were all on display and were highly animated flickering across the sky above the wee cottages around the bay at a tremendous rate of knots To give you some idea of their intensity it was easily visible to the naked eye including all the colours and structure even though there was a brilliant 3/4 full moon in a laser clear sky behind me, certainly sufficient to make the cottages easily visible including their moon shadows. The exposure times varied from f4 at 8 seconds at ISO 2000 all the way down to an unbelievable f5.6 at 2 seconds, ISO 1250 when it reached its very brightest. It lasted for well over an hour and I disgraced myself myself whooping with delight thankfully there wasn't another soul out.
