A meteor which many feared was a distress signal from a stricken ship, has been caught on camera above Loch Ness by a Highland tour guide who described it as "an absolute fluke."
John Alasdair Macdonald, originally from Lewis, runs his Hebridean Explorer business from the Loch Ness-side village of Drumnadrochit and decided to go out and take some pictures of Sunday's night sky.
"I am not a photographer really. I just take some now and again to put on Facebook. It had been such a lovely weekend and the sky was so clear, I thought I would nip up the loch and take some photos using by little compact camera which I just point and shoot."
He got down to the lochside near Dochfour and started snapping away. "I started after eight in the evening taking shots of the night sky with the stars. It was lovely. I had been there for about an hour and was just taking my last shots when this wonderful meteor appeared up the loch.
"It was an absolute fluke. I can claim no credit whatsoever. As my wife said 'sheer dumb luck,' and she was right. I know I will never take as good a photograph again no matter how long I try.
He said there had been quite a public response to the photograph. "It has been pretty hectic this morning really. We were heading down to Aviemore to do some skiing, but we turned round."
A spokeswoman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said "We had six calls after 9pm and 9.20pm to Stornoway reporting it as flare activity
With multiple sightings being received from across the north west of Scotland, the sightings have been attributed to meteor activity."
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