Aurora Attempt No. 6 (further images added)

[David Paterson]

The first was a good display, I still have to see a purple aurora, only seen the green so far.
Last winter I went to the Cairngorms during a long weekend hoping to see some, needless to say the sky was covered in deep cloud the whole time.
How long/dark can we expect the nights to be early in May?

Not very long and not very dark; only 3-4 hours of almost proper darkness. An aurora *theoretically* visible here seems to happen 4-5 times a year. Half arrive in daylight hours; rainy / cloudy nights account for all the rest, and from May to August the night sky is really not dark enough anyway. In the four years since I saw my first aurora in Lofoten, I reckon there have been two realistic chances to shoot one here in Killin. I missed the first (and best) chance because my alert service didn't alert me, since when I've been checking their and other websites twice a day, every day.

[Ashlandish]

That first is so subtle. Really enjoy both.

[Akira]

Dave, if you are given with such a marvellous opportunity to see aurora from your garden, it is well worth being patient.  The gradation of the color is beautiful.

Is there any red part of the aurora in the second image?  I've heard that purple is rarer than green and red is even rarer.

[David Paterson]

Akira - yes, I try to be patient but I'm not, by nature, a very patient person. 

The second image is a little too dark and there is a lot of noise in the area where the colour transitions from green to purple, but if you look closely at that area I think you will see there is a narrow band of red between green and purple.

I don't know which colours are rarer - I think it has a lot to do with the latitude from which the aurora is observed. So, north of the Arctic Circle, green predominates, but as you move southwards, the other colour - mainly red and blue - become more important. By the time you are down in Scotland, the green colour is just a narrow band along the horizon, as in my examples. In fact, as I watched the beautifully clear sky darken between about 9.30 and 10.30pm I realised I was beginning to see a band of pale green appearing, just above the line of hills. It's just visible, I think, on the right of this image -

[David Paterson]

A little later it was like this -

[Gary]

oooooooooooohhhh ... pure sweetness.

[Akira]

Dave, I do see the red band in the second image.  Also I do see the greenish hue in the far right above the contour of the mountais.

The color of the aurora seems to depend on several different factors: the kind of molecule, the energy of molecule crushing the atmosphere, altitude, etc.  I didn't know that aurora can appear as blue also.

What I can say for sure is that these various mysterious characters make the aurore even more attractive!

[simato73]

Not very long and not very dark; only 3-4 hours of almost proper darkness. An aurora *theoretically* visible here seems to happen 4-5 times a year. Half arrive in daylight hours; rainy / cloudy nights account for all the rest, and from May to August the night sky is really not dark enough anyway. In the four years since I saw my first aurora in Lofoten, I reckon there have been two realistic chances to shoot one here in Killin. I missed the first (and best) chance because my alert service didn't alert me, since when I've been checking their and other websites twice a day, every day.

It's as I feared. Slim or non-existing chance in May but some chance for my annual winter trip around February.
The weather will be key.