Friday 10th May 2024 will be remembered by many as the night the sky came alive across the UK with the colourful dance of the aurora.

After a series of high-energy flares were emitted by a giant turbulent area on the Sun, I was on watch for a potentially decent northern lights display later that evening - maybe something reasonably bright on the northern horizon. Aurora chasing in the southern half of the UK is usually 95% failure and 5% success - so often these larger events are a disappointment, more so, it seems, when the media hype things up. So I was cautiously optimistic, but more than prepared for a damp squib.

The cloud forecast was tricky to interpret. My usual “go-to” location for aurora up on the north Norfolk coast was looking as though it would struggle with cloud and haze. I thought about heading to the Lincolnshire Wolds - not s short trip - but again there was a lot of uncertainty in the forecast. So I decided instead to head reasonably locally to the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, outside Cambridge. I love the huge, futuristic structures of the radio telescopes and my favourite - the decommissioned skeleton of the One Mile Telescope - is potentially only accessible in its current state for a few more months as there is a planning application for a huge solar farm around it, almost certainly closing it off to the public and undoubtedly adversely impacting the scene. The only challenge with this location is that it is only a few miles outside Cambridge - if the aurora is weak, then it might struggle to punch through the light pollution.

Not long after arriving, and well before it had got dark, I started taking some test shots. Immediately it was apparent that there was colour in the sky. Shortly afterwards, I could make out the auroral arc to the north with my eyes, even though the moon was brightening the sky and the last remnants of sunset were yet to fade away. It wasn’t long until tall, clearly visible and coloured pillars started to dance in the sky.

The aurora built to an intensity that hasn’t been seen in the UK for over 20 years, and that intensity was sustained for the whole night. I was giddy with excitement, shooting over 10,000 images through to dawn and filming a few hours of real-time video, much of which went into the film I made of the night - easily the most memorable I’ve ever had under the stars. I strongly encourage you to watch that film, over on my Nightscape Journals channel (and linked to the right).

This image is from later in the night at the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager telescope array, an active instrument that moved to different targets over the course of the night, creating a fantastic timelapse within the film I made, linked to the right.