By Anthony Murphy
How many people living in Drogheda and the surrounding area know that the Northern Lights can be seen from the Boyne Valley at least half a dozen times a year? Well they can, and last night was one of those occasions.
Last night, due to a geomagnetic storm (scientific jargon for a marked increase in the flow of energised particles from the sun into the upper atmosphere), conditions were favourable for a display on our northern horizon.
Aurora Borealis. The Northern Lights. When you hear that name, you probably think of places like Alaska, Greenland, Iceland and northern Norway. This spectacular display of nature, which is caused by energy from the sun interacting with a layer of earth’s atmosphere called the ionosphere, is considered the Holy Grail of skywatchers.
I headed out with the camera at 8pm, knowing that it would be possible to see the aurora.
However, if you want to see the northern lights, you HAVE to get away from brightly-lit towns and villages.
There’s not much point trying to witness the aurora borealis from, say, West Street, or Chord Road, or the dual carriageway. First of all, West Street has tall buildings so you cannot even see the northern horizon! You need to go a location where there is a clear view to the north, unobstructed by streetlights, buildings and trees.
I found just such a location at Roughgrange, along the Boyne Canal, with a clear view of the northern horizon looking towards Newgrange.
But there is something of serendipity in the above photograph, and a story behind it.
I was sitting at home on my ham radio, listening to some CW (morse code) signals on the 7Mhz (40 metre) band. There was a distinct “flutter” on the signals – a sort-of vibrato, if you will. This is usually an indication that aurora is affecting the signals, causing them to fluctuate with a sort of wobble/vibration.
I looked at the Space Weather website and could see the Kp value was 5, indicating auroral activity. I saw a photographer and astronomer friend (Carl O’Beirnes) sharing a photo of some aurora visible from the coast at Balbriggan, Co. Dublin, so I quickly loaded the camera equipment into the car with the intention to head to Newgrange.
However, when I got to the roundabout leading onto the M1 motorway from Donore Road (to cross the river to the northern side), I intuitively and spontaneously decided to take a different exit, one that would lead to Donore and then Roughgrange on the south side of the river. It turned out to be a good decision.
When I arrived at the location beside the canal, I set up the camera and within moments I thought I could make out pale linear patterns in the sky. So I began taking photos.
The aurora was happening – over Newgrange. I captured five or six photos of these beams as they swept westwards from the constellation Cygnus (the swan) into Pegasus. Within moments, the display of curtains of coloured light ended, and I waited another hour and a half and saw nothing!
If I had taken the motorway and the Slane Road to Newgrange, it would have taken me about five minutes longer to get there and get set up, and I would have missed the whole thing!
So here is the best of the photos, captured at 8.08pm, looking over the Boyne River towards Dagda’s Mound and Síd in Broga, with this beautiful rare celestial display above.
On rare occasions, aurora displays can come further south, as happened in 2003 and 2004, when curtains of light filled the higher parts of the sky, in hues of green and purple and red. I was lucky to have captured those displays with my camera.
If you are interested in the possibility of viewing the northern lights, a very good Facebook page to keep an eye on is the Irish Aurora/NLC chasers’ group .
See more at www.mythicalireland.com
