Hints of aurora seen in stunning time-lapse of north Norfolk skies

The haunting beauty of the north Norfolk coast has inspired poets and painters for centuries, and now a photographer has capture the region’s night sky in stunning detail.

Gary Pearson, who created a stunning video of the night sky over Brancaster Staithe. Picture: GARY PEARSON - Credit: Archant

Gary Pearson, 51, who lives in Dersingham near the north-west Norfolk coast, spent an night with his camera at Brancaster Staithe in late February to capture this time-lapse video of the heavens.

Mr Pearson filmed the piece, which shows a hint of the Aurora - Northern Lights - over three hours, with the clear conditions over the salt marshes revealing a cosmos teaming with stars and meteorites.

He said: “Because of my photography I knew that Brancaster Staithe, as well as being a beautiful location on the North Norfolk coast, it is also suffers with very little light pollution.”

He said this made it an ideal spot, not only for stargazers and astronomers, but also photographers keen to capture something as spectacular and rare as the Northern Lights over Norfolk.

Mr Pearson said: “[In Norfolk] the Aurora can only be seen with the naked eye only particularly strong Auroras, as was the case back in 2016 when I successfully saw and photographed it both in Hunstanton and Thornham further along the coast.”

Mr Pearson said he used a Nikon D850 camera, Sigma Art 24mm F1.4 lens, mounted on a tripod. Each frame of the video is a 15 second exposure photo set at ISO 2,000, with the aperture on the lens set to f1.8.

To see more of Mr Pearson’s work, visit his page on Facebook Gary Pearson Photography.