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“Someones up late”.

Iron Pot AuroraHad one of those nights last night where I could just not sleep, so I decided to head out and see if I could get a nice shot on a beach where I recalled someone had built a makeshift stick “hut”.

The beach faced north, so I knew if the Aurora Australis was active I’d have to do at least a 200 degree panorama to get it all in. In the end it was only four shots with my 16-35 lens.

I have titled it “Someones up late”.

Shot shows the Iron Pot lighthouse at the mouth of the Derwent River in Storm Bay with Bruny Island to the right (Tasmania). Pictured to the left is a single shot from the same location a little further down the beach.

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.