Rolling Aurora (March 17/18 2013)

[colinmlegg]

Thought I'd post another pic from the March 17 Aurora Australis.

Later on that night a roll cloud formed off the coast (Contos WA) and lingered for awhile, before rolling over and clouding out. This is a frame from an all night timelapse overlooking a rock pool, just before it smeared out and covered the view.

[multiweb]

Great shot. The clouds perspective adds a lot of depth to the picture. Very nice. :thumbsup:

[Octane]

Love it, mate. :)

H

[iceman]

Timelapse! Bring it!

Excellent image.

[gregbradley]

Fabulous.

Yes, bring on the time lapse!

Greg.

[kustard]

Wow!

[Rod771]

Very nice Colin!

[ourkind]

That's stunning Colin, we're these visible naked eye? regardless seeing that roll cloud taking shape would have been spectacular too!

[sally1jack]

I agree these are beautiful, as ourkind has asked are these or are there any in Australia visible with the naked eye ?? :shrug: , if they are i would go & see them, very nice photo & a timelaps would be fantastic
phil

[Deeno]

Absolutely stunning image!

[colinmlegg]

Thanks a lot guys :)

Carlos/Phil, it was visible as a faint white glow at that stage. Earlier on the curtains were more visible and the brightest ones a faint orange. The roll cloud was visible as a dark shape out to sea.

The timelapse is almost done. I had some camera issues...one fogged over half way through and another stopped writing to card at frame 27. I restarted the 2nd one later but the intervalometer died. Not good timing! Fortunately a 3rd got the whole display and stayed free of dew. Just working out how to splice together the footage I got.

[sally1jack]

Thanks colin i would love to see it one day , also love to see the timelaps

thanks phil

[Lester]

Top class image Colin. Kendrick dew straps are good to prevent dew/ice. I used them in down to -26C recently. All the best.

[colinmlegg]

Thanks Lester :)

I do have them and used one on the 3rd camera, but ran out of time on the 1st and 2nd and just hoped for the best. Silly mistake :(

[astronobob]

What a Capture Colin , , Beaut timing, Dig the Milk way and both the Mag clouds in there as well, top class stuff,, :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Colin,

I just wondered if you could check out the attached report before I send it off to Bob Evans and post any comments for changes here.

The times are in U.T. and your local standard time. I got these by determining the southern meridian from your photos and going from there so they will be within ten or fifteen minutes.

Cheers

Ian

[colinmlegg]

Hi Ian,

Here are the times and brief details for the bursts of activity as seen from Contos beach WA. 17-18 March 2013 WST.

1. 20:17 -> 20:54, Pink, Camera, Not visible naked eye. (1/3 moon light)
2. 22:08 -> 22:54, Orange and Yellow, Camera, Naked eye visible, Brightest curtains faint orange to naked eye.
3. 23:34 -> 00:24, Orange and Yellow, Camera, Asleep at the time.
4. 01:07 -> 02:52, Orange Yellow Green, Camera, Naked Eye visible, Brightest curtains faint orange to naked eye.

Cloudy from 02:52 -> 04:00

5. 04:04 -> 05:13, Pink Purple Red, Camera, Asleep at the time.

Latitude - 34° 6'2.92"S
Longitude - 114°59'37.78"E

Start Astro Twilight @ 05:08.

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Colin,

very much appreciated. I will add that into the report. and furbish a final one back here before it goes to Bob.

Cheers

Ian

[colinmlegg]

Ian, just loading up the video now. It's not the final version, but does contain the entire night from 1 camera. I'll password protect for internal viewing only. You should be able to line up the times with the bursts seen in the video.

[colinmlegg]

Video here - https://vimeo.com/63066488 . password 'Coops' :)

[Ian Cooper]

What a brilliant effort Colin. You are right it is easy to work the times from the video, i.e. it is easy to work out south.

from this you really get a better idea of what is going on in a night when the 'Sneaky Lady' is dancing along your southern horizon!

Cheers,

Coops

[colinmlegg]

It's a marvelous sight Ian, one you could never get sick of.

One thing I forgot to mention. Check the video at 0:27 sec mark. A faint broad vertical bluish ray forms near the left edge. It extends 3/4 of the way up the frame. Be interested to know if that has a particular name?

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Colin,

that blue ray is very subtle but it is definitely a part of the surge pushing from west to east. The colour tells the story. Blue is a sign of bleaching by the sun. It happens more during aurorae australis that occur between mid October through to mid February.

It can happen in two ways. Firstly if the rays are particularly tall, and they can reach up to 1,000 km in height, then there is a chance that the rays will stick out above the earth's shadow. In doing this the normaly red rays are turned blue. This is for aurorae that are a long way from you. This is more prevalent the closer you are to either evening or morning twilight.

In your case the single ray looks to be a rogue one that is well in advance, further north, of the main display. This would bring it out of the earth's shadow as the left hand side is closer to the dawn twilight.

In my photo attached from the Great Storm of Nov 24th 2001, you can see how the tops of the rays are being bleached by the sun. I've also attached "The Blue Towers." The tallest rays I've ever seen as you can see from the annotated version the rays went beyond my zenith! It took three 28mm shots to get them all in. These must have easily been 1,000 km tall. The base of this display was overhead at Queenstown in the South Island, about 600 km SW of me. BTW the eye doesn't see iot as blue as that. It is more a soft blue/white colour. The reds/orange/crimson colours though can be just as the camera shows them on the big storms.

So, while most of your display lay inside the earth's shadow that one ray stuck its head out into the sunlight!

Cheers,

Ian

[colinmlegg]

Amazing shots Ian. I've occasionally seen blue in other peoples images and wondered what that meant...now I know :)

[Ian Cooper]

actually Colin, the more I looked at the vid the more I realized that the big blue was just the first sign of the display poking out into the morning light. You can see more of it affecting the display towards the end.

Cheers,

Ian