Silchester is a great location for Astro Landscapes and having missed the Aurora that nearly everyone else but me had witnessed on May 11th this year I was really lucky to have another opportunity while out on Aug 13th capturing images of the Perseid meteor shower. This occurs every year with the peak around Aug 12th/13th. It was a really clear night on the 13th and having made up my mind I’d have a second night trying to capture the meteorites I decided to visit Silchester and find a location high up on the wall with a view of St. Mary the Virgin visible across the fields.
The Aurora is very rarely visible in the South of the UK and when a red alert is issued by AuroraWatch UK it generally means it might be visible by using a camera. Cameras are far more sensitive to light than our eyes and with the right settings can show the Aurora if it’s present.
As I switched my Camera on I could immediately see the pink/magenta/yellow curtains from the skies over the fields appearing on the camera screen. I checked the AuroraWatch UK app and could see the red alert which was only just over the red threshold. The Aurora lasted for over two hours in which time I was able to not only capture the Aurora but also a number of the Perseids Meteors which I’d originally set out to photograph. The final astro landscape was created using five meteor images together with one Aurora image. I was also able to create this timelapse of the whole 2.5hrs using 407 * 20sec shots taken using my Sony A7 III Full Frame Camera, Lens Sony FE 2.8/12-24 GM ISO 640, f/2.8
The reason i set my ISO very low is because the sensor on my Sony camera is ISO Invariant and at ISO 640 will not over expose any bright areas due to lights, light pollution or the aurora itself. For cameras which do not have an ISO Invariant sensor I would probably start around 800 and then increase to 1600, 3200 etc..