Aurora Borealis Bannau Brycheiniog National Park

Dashing across the night sky back in May was a night to remember. I took my son out for the Aurora storm of the century! We spent time running around the common like a couple of mad mountain goats.
It was an evening to remember for the rest of my life, not because of the lights, well partly, I guess, but mostly because I got to share it with my son. When he was young, our first trip abroad when we left him for a weekend, was a trip to Tromso, in Norway to see the Northern Lights.

Years later…

Little did I know that nearly 13 years later, I would be dancing around the Brecon Beacons with him, looking at the red, pinks and green of the Aurora in the Wales!
Push forward to October of this year (yesterday) and once again, the early signs of an Aurora show, seemed to be good. Lots of news articles predicting a storm eqiuvalent in size to that of May. Ironically, we had an open evening in my sons school for A-Levels!
After having a bite to eat in the Bear in Crickhowell, we headed home. A short walk and I thought I’d check the levels. I use a couple of tools for this, which might be worth going into for a later article, but drop me a line, if you’d like to know what they are before that.

An hour later….

A cursory shot with the Apple Iphone showed a red sky. So, I jumped into the car and headed out onto the Llangattack Escarpment, or at least very close by, turned the camera North and this is what presented itself to me…

Dancing red Aurora light

with a lower green band and plenty of visible curtains, one, as you can see from this photograph was particularly strong.
Looking down the valley towards the Sugar Loaf, a red glow, with once again the green lower band of Aurora, although not quite as visible was clearly evident.

The show continued for about another hour and slowly began to drop in intensity, although it was still very evident that the Aurora show was continuing. Regardless, I headed back to the car and went home, happy that I’d caught a few shots of Aurora in a different part of the park.
A cup of hot chocalate later and the Northern Lights went supernova. The levels jumped from 500-600 to 1600…

and the red aurora and curtains went berserk for another 30 mins! Aurora Borealis Bannau Brycheiniog is becoming a lot more common than it once was.

Perhaps, I should have called my son Aurora!