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The Aurora Australis

Aurora Australis from Mortimer Bay
Aurora Australis from Mortimer Bay

It has been while since Hobart has seen a good strong Aurora. Yesterday the numbers were looking good all day, see: ozcreations.biz, and sure enough come dark the green and red was clearly visible to the naked eye.

From about 8:30 to 11:30 I snapped a few shots, and a few panorama stitches. I will upload some more to flickr as well.

If you would like to know more about the Aurora Australis, why not join the Facebook Page?

:Update: I returned to this location the other night, and while the gum still stands it has lost the main branch shown in this shot. It’s a shame as I would have liked to shot this tree again with a stronger aurora.

Aurora Australis – Storm.

South Arm Beach by Brendan Davey
South Arm Beach, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

Tasmania, and Southern Victoria witnessed a fantastic Aurora last night and I managed to shot quite a number of great shots.

The Aurora was quite visible with the naked eye, and it was very easy to see the ribbons, and at one stage they were so bright they were showing clearly in live view on my camera. WOW.

Hopefully we will continue to see more over the coming months.

Aurora Australis

Aurora AustraliaMy experience with the Aurora.

I have shot a few Auroras now, most at fairly low light levels when compared to those at very high or low latitudes. I have shot a nunber at around 42 degrees south from Tasmania, and here are my tips for shooting Auroras that are just visible to the eye.

Light, it’s all about light. The fastest glass is going to give you the best results, why? Auroras are funny things, large light curtains that slowly move and weave across the night sky, in order to get the best picture you need to “stop” or have as little movement in the curtains as possible. There are only two ways to do this while keeping your exposure short, either you increase your ISO or you open you lens f-stop to allow more light in. Increasing the ISO is not ideal as it adds more noise, and only the best cameras will have usable low light pictures at high ISO’s

The picture above was shot at ISO 800 for 2 mins at f4 with a 17-40mm, in this example you can just start to see start trails, and the aurora is flat with little variation across the color bands. f4 on this lens was the max f-stop for light. If however I had used a 24mm f1.4 I would have been able to reduce the time period by 3 stop or an exposure of 15 seconds @ f1.4 at ISO 800. This would have given the same overall exposure but allowed for more variation and exposed the ribbons better.

So, get the fastest glass you can afford, and this is sometimes a trade off with focus length. For example 16-35mm f2.8 v’s 24mm f1.4, the 24mm is going to allow a lot more light in, but will not be as wide as the 16-35, and the cheaper 17-40mm f4 is going to allow even less in. Another option is the Sigma 20mm f1.8 if you can handle it’s softness.

What else do I need to know? Well, don’t try shooting an aurora near other light sources, such as cities. If you moon is up, and all but a slither then forgot it, it’s going to wash your aurora shots out. Use a good tripod, I can’t stress it enough, don’t buy a cheap flexible tripod for low light photography. the slightest movement is going to wreck your shot. You can used ND grads, and they will help to even out brightness. Know where infinity is on your lens, as you may not be able to see enough to focus. Some cameras show stars in live-view zoomed in and you can focus on them, or a light source far in the distance.

Persistence and Patience

That’s all it takes. Finally I got the Southern Lights over the Iron Pot in Storm Bay. They were not as strong as they had been on Sunday night, and the weather deteriorated very quickly. But I manged to get a few shots before I had to pull the plug.

There were quite a few people trying their luck at the lookout overlooking Betsy Island. I think they had all left it to late (10-12pm), and there was almost nothing left of the Aurora.

GEOSTAT Alert Fail.

Iron Pot #1 by Brendan Davey
Iron Pot #1, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

Words you don’t really want to hear when you waiting for an Aurora.

“IPS GEOSTAT ALERT NUMBER 140: GEOMAGNETIC STORM FAILED TO EVENTUATE ISSUED AT 0402 UT ON 11 Jul 2012 BY IPS RADIO AND SPACE SERVICES FROM THE AUSTRALIAN SPACE FORECAST CENTRE”

IPS Space weather is great site for getting alerts and warnings about, well, space weather. 🙂 I must admit trying to get a clear cold night with no moon and the right conditions for a geomagnetic storm to occur all at the same time is quite difficult. Particularly when you need the storm to be big enough to see the aurora from a location 42 Degrees South.