Melanie Windridge's Blog, page 5

How meeting the Queen inspired me to climb Mount Everest

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay after summitting Mount Everest, 1953. Image: Jamling Tenzing Norgay, Wikimedia Commons.

On 29th May 1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top of the world on a British expedition led by John Hunt. It was a tremendous achievement that captivated people around the world. News of the success reached Britain on 2nd June, the morning of the Queen’s coronation. Since then, the Queen has been a great supporter of Everest anniversary events and the Duke...

Best place and time to see the aurora?

Wild aurora in northern Norway.

What is the best place and time to see the aurora?

I get asked this question a lot, and there’s no simple answer. But in what follows I give you some things to think about.

When to go

It needs to be dark to see the aurora, and when you go to high latitudes it gets very light in summer, above about 66 degrees there is 24-hour daylight in summer. In the northern hemisphere, the aurora season (when it will be dark enough to see the northern lights) is roughly Sept...

Icehotel & aurora with Mum

Me and my mother outside the Icehotel.

I’m just back from a short trip with Discover the World to Abisko and the Icehotel. I was working on this trip – I was the aurora expert for the group – but I also took my mother along with me for her first experience of the Arctic.

My mother very much enjoyed the Icehotel, including the night in the cold room. She thought it was an interesting experience and I thought it gave her an insight into what it’s like for me camping in snowy places – though wit...

Aboriginal Sky Stories

Would it be possible to see the aurora during a solar eclipse? And has it happened in the past? The answer is maybe. It’s not impossible, but it would be a very rare occurrence. And historical data is patchy.

But cultural astronomy researchers in Australia have been investigating an Aboriginal story that appears to describe seeing the southern lights during a total solar eclipse. They got in touch with me as part of their research, given my experiences of the aurora and an eclipse.

Big Warram...

If Van Gogh painted aurora

An art exhibition associated with the recent film Loving Vincent is now open in Athens. Loving Vincent is the first feature-length animated film painted entirely in oils, and tells the life and death of Vincent Van Gogh. Each of the film’s 65,000 frames is an oil painting on canvas, using the same technique as Van Gogh, created by a team of 115 painters. It was written and directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman and was released worldwide in 2017.

Val Fulford, one of the film’s artists,...

Aurora at Bamburgh Castle

Northern Lights over Bamburgh Castle by Alan Leightley.

Two years ago when I lived in Northumberland, my husband and I celebrated New Year’s Eve the way we always do, with a Midnight picnic. When we lived in America we brought the New Year in on the banks of Niagara Falls, in Tanzania it was Kilimanjaro lighting up the sky, in Madeira the biggest firework display we had ever seen. But Northumberland beat the lot with its magic.

We had both trundled across the sand dunes, wrapped up like yetis...

Emerald Freeways

Emerald freeways dance above a tipi fire at Blachford Lake Lodge in Canada’s North West Territories. By Hamilton Lund.

A poem by Hamilton Lund, inspired by his trip to Blachford Lake Lodge in February 2017 with the Cloud Appreciation Society.

Emerald Freeways

This wind-river of magnetic night
reigns the deepest reaches of my realm
its searing source a burning heart
a breaking wave of silky rhythm
These emerald freeways of the frozen north
where the souls of earthlings soar
on satin wings and...

My Great American Eclipse

Sunset at Eola Hills Legacy Estate Vineyard, Oregon.

Well it’s now almost three weeks since the total solar eclipse in America (21st August) and I’m back in the UK after a wonderful trip to the USA. The eclipse was beautiful, but too short, of course!

I chose to be in Oregon for the eclipse, mostly because of the good chance of favourable weather at this time of year. I was lucky to be at Eola Hills vineyard with my friend, Andy, where there was entertainment and enjoyment to be had over the...

Eclipses & Aurora

Like the northern lights, eclipses have been viewed since ancient times, often with a mixture of fear and awe.

The Sun is such an important part of life. It has featured in mythology and worship for millennia, also forming the stimulation for much of the early astronomy.

The Vedic religion, the precursor to modern Hinduism, has one of the earliest written texts dating back to 1500 BCE. It contains hymns praising the Sun as the source and sustainer of all earthly life. Part of the Vedas was d...

Tales of an aurora addict 3

As I finally understood how and why the Northern Lights happen, thanks to Melanie’s presentation at Gillingham School (though I still like the idea of polar bears shining red, green and blue torches up to the sky – “Aurora Bearealis” theory!) I decided to have another go at seeing them. I booked a 4 night trip back to Abisko and then to the Ice Hotel.

Ribbons of green aurora in Sweden.

Abisko was experiencing a really weird weather pattern which had seen the ice on the lake melting – no chanc...