NikonGear'23
Images => Life, the Universe & Everything Else => Topic started by: David Paterson on September 08, 2015, 00:58:17
-
Ever since we all saw and photographed a wonderful aurora in Lofoten, 4 years ago, I've been determined to shoot a "Scottish" aurora. I signed up for an "aurora alert" service which let me down twice by not giving an alert until the aurora was nearly finished; on other occasions of strong indications, it was cloudy in Scotland.
Finally, tonight, I got something - not in the same league as we had in Lofoten, but something, just the same. To the naked eye it was very faint, but just visible; but the camera, as usual, does a superb job of light-gathering. I haven't actually checked the metadata but it was something like 8 secs at f4, 1000iso, 28/f2 AIS (on D600).
-
Great effort :)
-
Well worth the wait Dave. It reminds me of the Scottish song " The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen".
-
Glad your patience paid off.
I like the different colours - and hope you get many more opportunities
-
Impressive color-pattern.
-
Cool! Wonderful colors.
And yes, we were treated with amazing amounts of auroras while in Lofoten.
-
Thanks to everyone for the kind comments. What I forgot to say is that the photographs were shot from our own garden - not the best aurora-viewing location, but I didn't want to miss anything by taking time to drive somewhere else. I haven't processed everything yet, but here is another image -
-
A couple of great catches - I do like the composition and colours in #2.
-
Good shots. Tonight I will make an effort here in Oslo too. With some luck, som auroras should be visible.
-
Thanks, Mike and Terje. It's tempting to brighten the images more, but then you lose the brilliance of the stars against the dark sky; compromises, compromises. :)
-
Looks lovely Dave.
And what a bonus to see it from your own garden
-
Lucky you! The first one is great, with the purple colour and the pillars.
It has been cloudy a long time here, so I haven't seen much auroras so far. Another problem is that the sky is still a bit bright at night here north of the Arctic Circle. It will be better :)
I hope to try the D810A for auroras this season. The increased sensitivity for deep red (and much less noise) could be perfect for the northern lights.
-
Beautiful David!
-
Lucky you! The first one is great, with the purple colour and the pillars.
It has been cloudy a long time here, so I haven't seen much auroras so far. Another problem is that the sky is still a bit bright at night here north of the Arctic Circle. It will be better :)
I hope to try the D810A for auroras this season. The increased sensitivity for deep red (and much less noise) could be perfect for the northern lights.
Thanks, Colin, Bjørn and Peter.
Bjørn - it has been very cloudy here for months but suddenly we are enjoying an Indian summer with warm sunshine and - very important - clear skies. Here also the sky is not getting properly dark until after midnight, and this display was finished well before then. I shot these with the D600 which is much better at high ISO than my D800, but still noisy. Also, I am a novice at processing aurora files and am just learning as I go along. I've already learned a few things and am going back to the raw files to try again.
-
The first was a good display, I still have to see a purple aurora, only seen the green so far.
Last winter I went to the Cairngorms during a long weekend hoping to see some, needless to say the sky was covered in deep cloud the whole time.
How long/dark can we expect the nights to be early in May?
-
The first was a good display, I still have to see a purple aurora, only seen the green so far.
Last winter I went to the Cairngorms during a long weekend hoping to see some, needless to say the sky was covered in deep cloud the whole time.
How long/dark can we expect the nights to be early in May?
Not very long and not very dark; only 3-4 hours of almost proper darkness. An aurora *theoretically* visible here seems to happen 4-5 times a year. Half arrive in daylight hours; rainy / cloudy nights account for all the rest, and from May to August the night sky is really not dark enough anyway. In the four years since I saw my first aurora in Lofoten, I reckon there have been two realistic chances to shoot one here in Killin. I missed the first (and best) chance because my alert service didn't alert me, since when I've been checking their and other websites twice a day, every day.
-
That first is so subtle. Really enjoy both.
-
Dave, if you are given with such a marvellous opportunity to see aurora from your garden, it is well worth being patient. The gradation of the color is beautiful.
Is there any red part of the aurora in the second image? I've heard that purple is rarer than green and red is even rarer.
-
Akira - yes, I try to be patient but I'm not, by nature, a very patient person. ;)
The second image is a little too dark and there is a lot of noise in the area where the colour transitions from green to purple, but if you look closely at that area I think you will see there is a narrow band of red between green and purple.
I don't know which colours are rarer - I think it has a lot to do with the latitude from which the aurora is observed. So, north of the Arctic Circle, green predominates, but as you move southwards, the other colour - mainly red and blue - become more important. By the time you are down in Scotland, the green colour is just a narrow band along the horizon, as in my examples. In fact, as I watched the beautifully clear sky darken between about 9.30 and 10.30pm I realised I was beginning to see a band of pale green appearing, just above the line of hills. It's just visible, I think, on the right of this image -
-
A little later it was like this -
-
oooooooooooohhhh ... pure sweetness.
-
Dave, I do see the red band in the second image. Also I do see the greenish hue in the far right above the contour of the mountais.
The color of the aurora seems to depend on several different factors: the kind of molecule, the energy of molecule crushing the atmosphere, altitude, etc. I didn't know that aurora can appear as blue also.
What I can say for sure is that these various mysterious characters make the aurore even more attractive!
-
Not very long and not very dark; only 3-4 hours of almost proper darkness. An aurora *theoretically* visible here seems to happen 4-5 times a year. Half arrive in daylight hours; rainy / cloudy nights account for all the rest, and from May to August the night sky is really not dark enough anyway. In the four years since I saw my first aurora in Lofoten, I reckon there have been two realistic chances to shoot one here in Killin. I missed the first (and best) chance because my alert service didn't alert me, since when I've been checking their and other websites twice a day, every day.
It's as I feared. Slim or non-existing chance in May but some chance for my annual winter trip around February.
The weather will be key.