The sun is at it’s most active at the moment, because the magnetic field is about to flip which it does every 11 years or so (amazing that it’s so quick!). Anyway, this gives rise to increased solar activity, and can mean increased likelihood of auroras. The earth was given a big blast of energy and there were incredible auroras seen all over the place. As luck would have it, we’d agreed to go to a pub quiz with friends just exactly when it was at it’s most active. I wish I’d just said “sorry, can’t go!”.. by the time I went to view it, you could only see anything with a long exposure.

Anyway, some pics and video’s from around the place. Video is from Ian Griffin who makes amazing astrophotography.

My own humble offering. It was still pretty cool to get the picture though. I’d very fortunately bought a second hand D3400 which was a massive step up on my old D60. I think I now know why I’ve had very very poor photos when trying to take night pics. The D60 iso goes up to 3200, and the D3400 is 25,600 which is a completely different beast for night pics.

I’ve been contracting for about 7 years now, working remotely for a US based education company. It has been an incredibly good job to have, especially while Anna has been young. Having the ability to travel back to Europe and work there for extended periods has been just brilliant. I really enjoyed working with my colleagues, and working on a product that is in the education sector. Stressful at times, especially for the first few years where I was the solo dev. Being in charge of literally everything website related was a bit nerve wracking when the odd thing went wrong (almost always something outside of our control with our hosting provider).

Anyway, it has long been time for a change. A job came up at Vibrant Planet which is a platform for landscape and wildfire resilience, and I decided to apply. It had been such a long time since I’d done an interview I really wasn’t sure how it would go – but, it went well enough that they offered me a role. It’s another fully remote job which I’m thankful for, as I really like the flexibility. I’m also incredibly excited to be working in the climate resilience sector. To get to keep doing programming and also do something positive for communities in our changing climate, well, perfect. It is a full time role (instead of the ~ .8 or less I was doing before), but, there are a lot of upsides so I’m excited for the change.