Month: January 2026

Should I? What if?

After rousing myself from the sofa a couple of evenings ago I noticed my phone on the kitchen table. It showed a very high red aurora alert. I cursed my laziness when I saw that it had been red all evening! I rushed outside and through a break in the cloud – a rare phenomenon in itself – I could see that that, yes, the sky looked rather “different”. I threw on some more layers , grabbed my camera and tripod and walked along the road. As explained previously we live on an exposed east-west ridge with (almost) unobstructed views to the north and south – ideal for seeing the Northern Lights. I soon came across a couple who were obviously aurora watching. They had come up from the nearest village and told me how amazing it had been and showed me pictures on their phones. I was downcast but set the tripod up anyway; and soon noticed that the camera was almost out of battery! So it was back to the house and more piddling about. Finally almost semi-organised, I came back out just in time to discover that cloud was, by then, almost 100%. A popular photographic maxim in the past was “1/125th second at f8 and be there”. Those settings are clearly not appropriate for photographing the aurora but the last requirement certainly is and I had failed it completely!

2024 had been an excellent year for seeing the aurora here in west Wales, as it was in many other parts of the country. Twice – in May and October – I saw spectacular displays with a further moderate display on my birthday in September. So I’d had some fairly recent experience of the pitfalls and problems involved in aurora photography. I wrote about these experiences in this post and this post . In the former I said I could write a book on aurora photography: I was exaggerating, of course, but I do find the subject absolutely fascinating., and not only in a technical, “how to” sense.

I explained in this post why it is that we see much less colour in the aurora when we look at it in “reality” than when see a photograph of it. To summarise, our eyesight is more sensitive to black-and-white than colour at low light levels. It is just the way our eyes work. So a digital sensor (or even film) will pick up more colour than our eyes do. The sensor is more “objective ” than our eyes are. Even that, I suspect, is a generalisation: The first time I ever saw the northern lights – in about 1984 – I was with a friend. My memories of that event were of a white-ish or pale green aurora, whereas he remembers a colourful one. There must be individual differences in the human ability to pick up colours at low light levels.

Another consideration might be how our camera (or phone) is set up to take and produce the photographs. When the photographer sees the result of their shutter press on their phone or the rear screen of the camera, they are looking at a jpeg file , already automatically processed by the device to give optimum results no matter what the subject is. Other photographers set their camera up to produce a raw file only, which needs to be manually processed using software (such as Lightroom) designed specifically for the task. When downloaded onto a computer the raw file usually looks like a dull version of reality, which needs individual treatment to get the best out of it. The camera also produces a jpeg which is what appears on the rear screen. And over- or under- exposure will affect the intensity of the colours in the digital file. Yet another variable!

Anyway…….. yesterday evening had been more or less cloudy but by 11 pm there were signs of a clearance coming up from the south. As I lay in bed , through the window I could see that the sky between broken cloud looked paler than normal. Could it have been a full moon effect in some way? No…. that was about a fortnight ago. I lay there considering the pro’s and con’s of leaving my warm and comfortable cocoon. Should I? What if? Steadily and calmly adding layer after layer of warm clothing and collecting my camera gear from several different locations (ever organised, me……) I was outside by about 11.20 pm. and straight away could see an aurora with the naked eye.

I had mounted a fixed focal length Panasonic 9mm f1.7 lens on the camera (18mm full-frame equivalent). While this is too wide for most situations I had purchased it partly with the Northern Lights in mind. Its main advantage is the f1.7 aperture. This allows much shorter shutter speeds to be used, and it gives an excellent depth of field, even open wide. I set the tripod up and pressed the shutter. I was elated on seeing the result. A deep crimson was visible on the rear screen which was barely visible to the naked eye, while the off-white/pale green colouration which had been visible became a deep lime green. Over the next fifty minutes the intensity of the aurora diminished steadily and although I waited for it to be re-invigorated it wasn’t to be.

One final philosophical consideration, though. If we can’t literally see something, does it really exist? My feeling is that it does.

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Definitely not the Boy Scouts…….

This photograph, originally in colour, was taken about thirty years ago, and appeared in my first book Wales – the Lie of the Land. The location is the Nanteos Estate near Aberystwyth, which contains some fine clumps of beech trees planted as landscape features. During an exploration there I met the farmer and he showed me this graffiti, which he claimed he had carved himself. In case you can’t decipher it, it reads HERR ADOLF HITLER 1933, and includes a Swastika. It is dated 1937, so probably 58 years prior to my taking the photograph. I don’t remember how old the farmer was but the graffiti was carved to last and it seems unlikely that a child, or even a teenager, could have been responsible for it.

Over the years I have pondered over the origin of the graffiti. History has never been my strong point but the most likely explanation, it seemed to me, was that prior to the second world war, a party of Germans had camped on the estate and left a memorial of their visit. And it looks like I may have been correct.

Last week I visited the Ceredigion Archive to enquire about the graffiti. Did they know anything about its origin? The archivist didn’t but a visitor overheard my question and told me that there were some reports in the Cambrian News of the day about a visit from Hitler Youth to Wales in July 1937. That was my lucky break. At the National Library I discovered in the July 30th edition of the paper that “twenty-one members of the Hitler Jugend (Nazi Youth Movement) camped at Aberdyfi on Thursday week“. The report continued :

…..”owing to the inclement weather (they) were allowed the use of the Pavilion. They had spent one week of their British tour as guests of the Rydal Boys School at Colwyn Bay and had marched through Snowdonia, Beddgelert, Harlech and Towyn, and on to Aberdyfi.

They were, apparently, warmly received wherever they went and enjoyed the wonderful scenery and the friendliness of the local people. “They continued their route marching on Saturday morning and before leaving were presented with a specially inscribed souvenir copy of the Aberdovey Guide by Mr Owen Jones, of the Publicity Bureau”, said the Cambrian News.

More searching on the internet led me to an opinion piece in NATION.CYMRU (15/9/25) which quoted the Cambrian News as saying that in July 1937 twenty-one members (plus three adults) of this movement [Hitler Youth] arrived in Aberystwyth on Saturday “and made the Scout Hall their headquarters“. It claimed that rather than marching, they were actually cycling, which seems far more likely and corroborates with other reports of their activities in the UK. The well-meaning hosts all over Wales must have believed that these charming, clean-living, visitors were the German equivalent of the Boy Scouts – but this was far from the truth. The oath taken by all 10 year olds on entering the Hitler Youth included the following statement:

“In the presence of this blood banner which represents the Fuhrer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God”

and “I promise to do my duty in love and loyalty to the Fuhrer and our Flag“.

It has been said that the purpose of the Hitler Youth was to indoctrinate those children into Fascist ideology before they had a chance to learn anything else.

These cycling trips were not unusual in the mid- to late- 1930’s and they made links and stayed with Boy Scout groups and ‘public’ (actually private) schools. The Nazis were very impressed by the British ‘public’ school system, and cultivated links with Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, who is known to have had Nazi sympathies. But the British secret service became suspicious of them and for good reason: behind the healthy outdoor living activities of these young people lay a more sinister purpose. They were instructed to make notes on and memorise the location of towns and villages and landmarks such as church towers.

“Make a note of the names of places, rivers, seas and mountains. Perhaps you may be able to utilise these sometime for the benefit of the Fatherland”, they were told.

So did the Hitler Youth who arrived in Aberystwyth in late July 1937 actually camp on the Nanteos Estate? It would certainly have been suitable, should the owner and occupier – a certain Margaret Powell – have been naive enough to have allowed it.