Aurora Observed on beach at Cape Adare, 28 May 1911

The British Antarctic Expedition, also known as the Terra Nova expedition of 1910 - 1913 is best known for the courageous but ultimately ill fated attempt to race to the South Pole. The fate of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his team is well known but many do not realise that scientific investigation and discovery lay at the heart of the British Antarctic Expedition. The meteorological logs and related data and documents and the aurora log from the expedition are all held at the National Meteorological Archive. The team included geologists, biologists, a physicist, a zoologist and a meteorologist. All members of the teams were expected to take a turn at making meteorological observations during all parts of the expedition. Expedition meteorologist George Clark Simpson collated all of these and also carried out a rang of other observations from the team base camp. Team members, especially geologist Raymond Priestly also made notes on sightings of the Aurora and sketches describing where the aurora was sighted and how it appeared. On this page from the Aurora log Priestly describes an Aurora observed on the beach at Cape Adare, 28 May 1911.