frogesque

Absolutely not! You will need proper eclipse viewing goggles or, even better if you have a pair of binoculars you can project the image onto a piece of white card. Never, ever look at the sun though ANY optics unless they have been specially adapted (eg. with Baader film covering the objective lens). Light and heat concentrated by even a relatively small lens can permanently damage the retina in the eye. This cannot be overstressed enough! Potential blindness is not to be taken lightly. Best bet if you have never observed the sun with optical equipment is to contact your local astronomical group and ask if you can go along to an open observation. Most will be very willing to accommodate, especially if you have children who can become enthused about astronomy in general.

Still snowing here, about 2" settled.

Taken 9.30pm 28th. April 2016. Thornton, Fife. More snow than we've had all winter!

Been away over Easter, first blob of frog spawn appeared last Thursday just before we went and we now have a loads. Pond activity has now gone fairly quiet with just one pair of determined stragglers still coupled up. Still no toad spawn that I can see - odd, 'cos I know there are some round about. Edit: WWS, interesting re Pool Frogs. We have a mixture of colours from almost white (a female) through shades of brown/green to virtually black. Don't think any would be Pool Frogs though.

Woohoo! Our pond has been very busy for over a week but it's more like Haymarket than Waverley (old Scottish joke lol) with no spawn so far. I really don't know how they manage this level of activity for so long.

Finally a wee bit warmer and our frogs are very vocal and busy. No spawn yet but it won't be long now.

You just can't beat looking out the door! Alerts, even if they are correct will not not let you see an aurora if you have 100% cloud cover and driving rain in an F8 gale. I was fortunate, I'd looked at Solarham and saw the kick in Bz and the other indicators. Went outside and there it was visible under streetlights on probably the clearest, still, moonless night we have had for a long time. The other thing folk have to realise is that aurora are very unpredictable. The very best displays may only last a few minutes or may last an hour or more. Often there is a lot of time spent waiting for a steady, somewhat boring band to actually do something. The something tends to happen quickly as twisted magnetic field lines snap and reconnect, a substorm, then you can get the perfect display with the best range of colours.

Ice is off the pond today but water temp (3" deep) still at zero. Air temp 5C, light rain. Frog activity, nil. Hopefully an end to this cold spell by the weekend.

Just taken a pic from front door. I won't embarrass myself by posting it! Aurora is so low and faint if you didn't know it was there you wouldn't see it. And that's with a the camera.

Re forecasting. Space weather tend to be American biased but the did correctly forecast a co-rotating volume of solar wind to hit t Earth on the 7th. There after I keep an eye on Solarham to see what is actually going on. The best indicators and live are the solar wind speed and density with, critically, Bz, the magnetic orientation of the solar wind. This showed a dramatic kick to the south yesterday evening. The other good live indicators are the earth currents on the magnetograms, when they start going bonkers it's time to look out the door. All that said, the intensity of the display and whether it is static, dynamic, green or multicoloured can only be seen by actually looking at it. It's what makes aurora watching so interesting, and frustrating. Last night it all came good for the northern UK with clear sky and no moon. Even the wind died so no fighting to keep the camera tripod from falling over. Note to self though, remember to take fully charged battery and a spare next time! Spare memory cards don't go amis either.

Yep, A fainter aurora looks like a very soft cloud but the stars shine through it. The best way to describe is a sort of milk in water hue. A camera will pick it up as mainly green with maybe some other colours thrown in

Turned into great view, band held steady and fairly quiet for 1/2 hour or so then the sky erupted. Some patches almost as far south as the top of Orion stretching across to just above Jupiter. Unfortunately the camera battery kept dying on me so had to keep taking it out and warm it up in my pocket. Show is still ongoing as of 10.00pm.

Nice aurora band with some curtains from my front door tonight. Edit: looks like it might be worth a short drive!

The pond has been very quiet since the early start with many days covered in ice. Last night however was wet and mild and a bit od sun during the day has helped. The pond has warmed to a balmy 2C. There have a few frogs active all day but it's starting to get chilly again.

Had a look out just now. Very faint band to the north, even the camera barely picked it up. Not worth a 40 mile round trip to find a decent dark sky location. May try again later.

Kp 6 total overcast with cold drizzle thrown in! whacking great coronal hole though so storm could last for a couple of days. Keep watching.

Wet sleety snow here in Thornton. Miserable stuff.

Never had newts, or toads for that matter, in our pond. Just frogs - loads and loads and l. . . a lot anyway. Saw a pic on FB yesterday of frogspawn in Dumfriesshire so they are starting early. Our pond iced over last night so that will cool their ardour somewhat. Need some nice warm sunny days with a bit of overnight cloud to warm the water up.

Well, go and have a proper look then I need to clean the winter garbage out the pond pronto or I won't be able to move for frog spawn if they keep this up. Edit: Cleaned out the pond, water temp reading 0C (Zero) so I think it may still be a bit early yet. Usually need somewhere about 4C (inversion temp) before they really get going.

Two frogs coupled up on the surface of the pond this morning - and it's not even past Valentine's Day yet! Wet and mild winter has definitely had an effect.

Superb pics! Saw them from Fife as well but later on and the colours were washed out by then.

Very nasty in this part of Fife today. Cold, grey and driving rain. Stay safe everyone.

Wet sleety/snow in Thornton, near Glenrothes at the moment. Just let the dog out and she didn't think a lot of it!

Great pic on space weather main page from Glenfarg, New Year fireworks with Aurora as backdrop.

Solarham prediction Kp7 for the 30th. Don't know how we will fare with Atlantic storm Frank on the way. Maybe have to just go out and hope for the best - if I can stay on my feet.