Lake Ballard and Aurora

[Grahame]

Gday All,

I was up at Lake Ballard (north of Kalgoorlie) for a weekend which turned out to be a very stormy 48 hours. on the sunday night things looked like clearing up so I left my storm observing spot and went back to the Lake hoping it would clear.

By the time I had got back and gathered my gear things were looking promising as far as clouds were looking so I mounted up what i could carry and headed out - mind you it was inch deep water and extremely slippery mud underneath that so had to be careful carrying gear that would not like the salty water very much if you lost balance.

About 30 mins into this (midnight local time) it was still quite windy and I was shooting test shots of reflections, the sub showed an intense red on the horizon...

I knew what this meant and started taking frames, unfortunately it only lasted 5 mins from when I spotted it but this is one of the best frames of the event.

Taken with a Canon 6D on a vixen polarie at 1/2 speed, 50mm lens @ f2.8 ISO 6400 for 30 seconds

Thanks for looking :)

Grahame.

[iceman]

Beautiful, Grahame.

There must be a bit of trailing with 50mm @ 30 seconds. Hardly noticeable in the web version :)

[gregbradley]

Great shot. I did not know aurora can be so short lived.

Greg.

[Octane]

Beautiful! Great composition, too. :)

Can't wait to get out to some of these places!

H

[trek1701]

Nice shot.

Was this taken with the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens?

Cheers Mark

[rogerg]

Of course you don't need me to tell you it's an excellent photo :) Great colours etc. etc. etc. :)

[multiweb]

Very nice framing Grahame. Cool shot. :thumbsup:

[Grahame]

Cheers all!

The camera was on a vixen polarie on 1/2 speed too - this would explain the no trailing part :)

Mark: yep good old nifty fifty for this one stopped back to f2.8

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Grahame,

great effort to capture that auroral glow. Your picture would put a northern limit on the extent of visibility of this fine Kp6 display.

Are you able to let me know when the picture was taken?

I just checked out Lake Ballard on Google Maps. An interesting looking lake in both map and satellite mode. I would guess that there is more water in the lake at the moment? Roughly where did you set up?

As you might have guessed i'm slowly getting an aurora observation from you if you don't mind. Between you and Colin plus the shots by Greg Gibbs at WaggaWagga we will build up a detailed review of this display.

Apart from a few places most of New Zealand was clouded out for this one. Any help you can give on this would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Ian Cooper
North Island Coordinator
Aurora & Solar Section
R.A.S.N.Z.

[niko]

very lovely

[CapturingTheNight]

Awesome shot Graham, but you already know that from FB. :thumbsup:



Hi Ian,
Whilst I live near Wagga Wagga, my aurora shots from Sunday night/ Monday morning where taken from Mount Buffalo in Victoria. Although, looking at how strong it was and considering I was able to view it naked eye, I wouldn't be surprised if it was also visible from Sydney and beyond (assuming no light pollution)
Cheers
Greg

[MrB]

Great shot Grahame!
Now you have a Polarie, you won't be borrowing the Astrotrac anymore? Poor thing's gonna feel unloved :lol:

[Ian Cooper]

Cheers Greg, I will google map that.

Ian

[Grahame]

Gday Ian,

I have replied via PM for you :)

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Grahame,

I've attached a copy of the report that I am about to send to Bob Evans in Invercargill. Can you check it over and post here with any adjustments you think are necessary.

I worked the times out from the southern meridian on your photos. times are given in U.T. first and then Standard Time afterwards.

Cheers

Ian

[Grahame]

Looks good Ian,

Elevation was 366 Meters is the only change needed :)

Cheers,
Grahame.

[Ian Cooper]

Thanks Grahame, I wasn't going to take a stab on that one.

Cheers

Ian

[ourkind]

Beautiful capture Grahame, nicely composed!

[frenchbluehour]

peaceful pic.. .i like it :)

[Ross G]

A beautiful photo Graheme.

Love the composition.

Ross.

[Larryp]

Lovely photo, Grahame

[danielsun]

Beautiful framing and colors Grahame.:thumbsup: