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Autumn walks and auroras
Trimina
Posts: 41 Boards Initiate
in General Chat
I’m still amazed to have been able to visibly see them with the naked eye. I wasn’t expecting anything in the evening then, after a call from my dad and a quick nighttime walk they appeared above my head in my area, so far south than they’re usually seen.
I even managed to shoot them with the Pleiades in the second photo. You can see the small clusters of stars on the right.
I thought I was going insane looking so intensely in the sky for a glimpse of green or red. It turns out I was pretty lucky in keeping patient out in the cold. I actually saw them in May of this year in my area, but they came off ghostly and grey with only a tinge of the colour. The camera did all the work, but this time their colours truly came out, and I enjoyed seeing my town in shades of green and red for a few minutes.
These photos are from May and you can see such a difference. These ones were harder to spot all the different colours. You can definitely spot them though, even if they’re grey they move around very differently to clouds, in an almost eerie type of fading.
Autumn has always been my favourite season, but in the past few years the darkness started to really affect my mood, and I found myself waiting for the long days of summer to come back. Recently things have been changing, I’m quite liking the dark and I find it comforting whenever I go for walks, it keeps me calm. Sometimes with the sun out all day it can feel super invasive like everyone is watching me through their windows when I walk around the street.
I’ve spent most of my walks away from people and in the fields, I’ve felt really spoilt by the good weather we’ve been having, it makes it so I can actually walk through the grass without melting into marshland.
I think this autumn has been quite beautiful in the countryside. I even spotted my first batch of mushrooms earlier this week in the form of shaggy inkcaps. The white lumps are the young mushrooms, they look very ordinary. As they grow older and open up to their later stages, they start to melt and let out a dark goo like the last photo, hence their name.
On the side I’ve been trying to learn on identifying the different plants that grow on my area. I’ve spotted so many and am happy to say I can identify quite a few of them in my area. It’s fun during this time since it’s harvest season and you see so many edible berries and fruits like: sloe berries, crab apples, blackberries, elderberries and loooaaads of hazelnuts. Shaggy inkcaps in their young forms are actually great edible mushrooms too! But I’d advise to do lots of research and speak to professionals that know your area well before harvesting any😳
It makes you open to the world a lot more too. I’ve know there are things out there not to touch like stinging nettles, but really once you start learning about identifying plants there are so many common things that grow everywhere around us that can do us quite some harm. And often they blend in with the rest of the scenery, you truly never know what’s lurking behind the beauty.
I’d love to go more in depth of things I’ve seen butI feel like I’m rambling. Take away is there’s lots to spot right now so I’d recommend taking sometime to walk around your area and seeing what you can find.
I’m hoping if we ever get another Aurora alert that you will have clear enough skies in your area to see them☺️
I even managed to shoot them with the Pleiades in the second photo. You can see the small clusters of stars on the right.
I thought I was going insane looking so intensely in the sky for a glimpse of green or red. It turns out I was pretty lucky in keeping patient out in the cold. I actually saw them in May of this year in my area, but they came off ghostly and grey with only a tinge of the colour. The camera did all the work, but this time their colours truly came out, and I enjoyed seeing my town in shades of green and red for a few minutes.
These photos are from May and you can see such a difference. These ones were harder to spot all the different colours. You can definitely spot them though, even if they’re grey they move around very differently to clouds, in an almost eerie type of fading.
Autumn has always been my favourite season, but in the past few years the darkness started to really affect my mood, and I found myself waiting for the long days of summer to come back. Recently things have been changing, I’m quite liking the dark and I find it comforting whenever I go for walks, it keeps me calm. Sometimes with the sun out all day it can feel super invasive like everyone is watching me through their windows when I walk around the street.
I’ve spent most of my walks away from people and in the fields, I’ve felt really spoilt by the good weather we’ve been having, it makes it so I can actually walk through the grass without melting into marshland.
I think this autumn has been quite beautiful in the countryside. I even spotted my first batch of mushrooms earlier this week in the form of shaggy inkcaps. The white lumps are the young mushrooms, they look very ordinary. As they grow older and open up to their later stages, they start to melt and let out a dark goo like the last photo, hence their name.
On the side I’ve been trying to learn on identifying the different plants that grow on my area. I’ve spotted so many and am happy to say I can identify quite a few of them in my area. It’s fun during this time since it’s harvest season and you see so many edible berries and fruits like: sloe berries, crab apples, blackberries, elderberries and loooaaads of hazelnuts. Shaggy inkcaps in their young forms are actually great edible mushrooms too! But I’d advise to do lots of research and speak to professionals that know your area well before harvesting any😳
It makes you open to the world a lot more too. I’ve know there are things out there not to touch like stinging nettles, but really once you start learning about identifying plants there are so many common things that grow everywhere around us that can do us quite some harm. And often they blend in with the rest of the scenery, you truly never know what’s lurking behind the beauty.
I’d love to go more in depth of things I’ve seen butI feel like I’m rambling. Take away is there’s lots to spot right now so I’d recommend taking sometime to walk around your area and seeing what you can find.
I’m hoping if we ever get another Aurora alert that you will have clear enough skies in your area to see them☺️
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Comments
And your walks in nature sound so lovely, you're so right in saying that walking in nature can make you more open to the world, it's amazing that you've been identifying the different kinds of plants growing in your area - I should definitely do this next time I go out for a walk, it would be a nice little activity to do each time
I'd honestly love to hear more about what other things you've seen
Only thing I would recommend is try and find somewhere dark even like in a play park.
I took many of these in my area that’s slightly away from town but loads of streetlamps and just found dark corners when I could. I didn’t stay out too long either I went out every now and then from 10pm-12am. But again if you need to wake up early it is an issue, if only when the lights come they could come earlier and a little brighter for everyone to see!
They look super amazing too!. Yeah I'd say definitely later in the evening is when to take the pics too. The thing is where I live I'm right by a Morrisoms car park so the lights are on in the night so it is hard to see stars and stuff. They turn off at around 11 ish to 12 am ish but by then I'm fast asleep haha otherwise I wouldn't sleep. I don't sleep much anyways but yeah 😂
I’m so glad you agree with me about the seasons, I hope you’ve been coping with it well. Make sure to get regular sunshine when you can! With it being darker earlier theres a higher chance you’ll be able to see them since apparently we’re at a peak for solar storms ☺️ hoping that you can seem them someday!
I’d definitely recommend with identifying stuff, it’s super easy to get into it too. I recommend watching some videos on YouTube, I usually watch from fieldstudy or wildfoodsuk. There’s some really easy stuff to spot like blackberries, apples and hawthorn, the latter you see everywhere hedging around our farmlands. Start from there and naturally it can lead you to learning about more, we have a lot of plants with folklore here on the UK ☺️ so lots of spooky and cool things to learn about. I’ll definitely write more about this on future posts ❤️
And thank you so much for recommending me YouTube videos to look at! I’ll be sure to have a look at these! When I went for my walk today, I started to notice plants in my area that I became curious about - I think identifying plants will be so fun for future walks, and if I do end up going the same route for my walks, I won’t be bored each time since I’ll be identifying more and more plants as well as continue being curious about new ones I encounter!
I really look forward to your future posts!
Autumn has landed full force and when I had more free time in October managed to really enjoy it. I spotted more shaggy ink caps.
My time near nature was sparse but I tried my best in enjoying and capturing what I could. For a time in my life I really didn’t do much to document what was going on, and I feel like because of it I’ve missed experiencing things to their fullest. I’m taking more photos and as often as I can to preserve some of these moments and take care of myself when I’m feeling down or lost in the world.
I wish every day was like this, autumn really is my favourite season. Minus the fact I have to sweep so many leaves out the front door at work.
I’ve done lesser and lesser night walks and unfortunately we’ve had no auroras come up
The winter constellations have started to rise
You can see Orion on the bottom right— one of the winter constellations we can only see at this time of year
Currently tonight the moon and Jupiter are side by side, so if you have the chance in the evening I’d say to look out and enjoy them!!
There are a bunch of meteor showers ongoing now. The Taurids peaked last week but are still ongoing until the end of the month, you can find it by the constellation Taurus. With the Leonids peaking this evening where you can find through the constellation Leo. I haven’t spotted any meteors so far, but last month when the Perseids peaked I did manage to spot a few meteors
They come and go so quick though, so it’s so hard to take photos of them!
To everyone who has replied to this thread thank you
I’m writing this to remind ourselves to just take some time and enjoy our surroundings. I’m hoping you all luck with what you see in the night sky or even whatever it is you spot in nature!!
and i think you're reminder is so important - we should all go and explore nature and our surroundings whenever possible. you may have even motivated me to go take a walk at some point today!!
hope you're well and sending hugs
Sinead