My wife Liz and I share a keen interest in actualy seeing the aurora borealis (northern lights) over North Wales where we live.
So whenever there's an increase in solar activity, and the skies are dark and clear (a rare combination), we will head to the coast and look northwards over the Irish Sea, hoping to catch a glimpse of coloured bands along the horizon.
Such an opportunity arose in late March 2022, with clear skies and no moonlight to speak of.
So we headed off to the North Wales coast at Llanddulas to see what we could see.
Now when looking for aurora it's worth noting that a modern DSLR camera, such as the Canon 6DMK2 that I use, is far better at capturing the faint colours of an aurora than the human eye is.
So, of course, I had my camera set up pointing northwards over the Irish Sea and the red anti-collision beacons of the Gwynt-y-Môr offshore wind farm lining the horizon.
We sat there in the darkness for an hour or so without seeing any aurora with the naked eye, so I was intersted to see if my camera had captured any faint green colour in the sky above the horizon.
But after processing the hundreds of images captured, and creating this time lapse video, there was still no sign of that elusive aurora!
But what I had captured in my images was a lovely view of the darkening night sky, dotted with a myriad stars as they passed in stately procession over the glowing lights of the wind farm.
So although we have yet to see an aurora, these trips out at night do yield some beautiful sights, and it's a pleasure just to be out under the stars, aurora or not.
But one day....!
Filename - colwyn bay stars timelapse 01
Camera - Canon EOS 6DMK2
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 60mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 10 secs @ f/4, ISO6400
Exposure (end of sequence) - 10 secs @ f/4, ISO6400
Filters - None.
Shooting interval - 10 second
Music - Night Snow - Asher Fulero
Location - Llanddulas, North Wales
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4K and 1080p HD formats also available)
Clip duration - 13 seconds
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