Aurora - May 11, 2024

[OzEclipse]

A tiring 24 hrs. Drove 400km west to a secluded spot between Narrandera and Hay to escape the huge cloud mass in the east.

Driving through rain for the first 3.5 hrs I was questioning the wisdom of my actions. Eventually I drove out from under the weather system and was rewarded with these beautiful clear skies and Aurora Australis images.

I'm now back home (Hilltops Region). I've downloaded one camera, not the other and just processed two images of the 500 I shot last night.

Both images below taken 1130-1140UT (930-940pm) on 11/5/2024
Pentax K1
ISO 1600
Tv 10s Av 2.8

Samyang 14mm f2.8

Location: Near Darlington Point, NSW

The lens has a 75x110 degrees field of view. The pillars extend up to 50 degrees, the auroral arc was up to the zenith outside the field of view of this lens.

Tonight, there is an extremely faint auroral glow, green and red in the south not visible to the naked eye, just barely shows up on photographic image at ISO25600 0.5s f2.8.

There is a prediction for another strong event possibly tomorrow night.

Joe

[Mickoid]

Mate, hats off to you, that's dedication max :bowdown: ......but hey, the gamble paid off and you were soundly rewarded. Fantastic work on capturing a fine example of this rare event. Thanks for posting. :thumbsup:

[John W]

Well worth the effort Joe.

Cheers, John W.

[ronson]

Great effort and photos Joe! Sounds like it was an adventure to get out of the cloud cover. Looking forward to the rest of the photos :)

[Dave882]

Well worth the effort. Great work!

[gregbradley]

Fantastic work Joe.

Greg.

[OzEclipse]

Thanks to all for the generous comments. Here is a selection of some more photos. The first few show the aurora first punching through thin cloud, then the cloud breaking up.

The fisheye and the pano look like they are labelled the wrong way round. i enabled profile corrections on the fisheye which corrected to a rectilinear rendition. The panorama was captured with the lens pointing up rather than horizontal and my software rendered a barrel distorted curved horizon line.

Despite a reasonably good night's sleep last night, I am still a little tired but ever so glad I "went the extra mile."

cheers

Joe

[Anth10]

Joe:
These are breathtakingly beautiful images of the AA.

Should be very content with your efforts and the memory saved from the experience.
A

[strongmanmike]

Agree with Anth, great effort and top shots Joe :thumbsup:

Mike

[OzEclipse]

Thank you Mike and Anth. Yes very happy. One of the nice things was that I wasn't just standing around looking at the camera display. It was a brilliant, dynamic, bright and colourful visual spectacle. The pillars were undergoing sub-second pulsations and rising and falling in the sky.

cheers

Joe

[Derek Klepp]

Thanks Joe worth the drive.I was in Tassie but came home the day before to clouds so glad to see the pics.
Derek

[strongmanmike]

Wow, sounds fantastic! I'm up at Eagleview right now with calm, clear, low humidity conditions and the Moon just set, with a panoramic elevated view to the south...buuuut nothing obvious yet :prey:

Mike

[OzEclipse]

Mike,
My understanding is that the current crop of CME’s have all reached earth. Nothing to watch for until there’s more flares.

Joe

[strongmanmike]

That was what I was thinking but thought I might see something still...anyway, I'm imaging too, so all good, great seeing too, plus I saw a bright meteor travel 90deg across the sky at high speed and break up over towards the Brindabellas, like a sparkler, very cool.

Mike

[gregbradley]

Yeah I went to a local lookout with a good southerly view with my mirrorless camera and tripod but nothing.

Greg.

[astronobob]

Woah, you have Bagged up gigabytes by the sounds Joe. Fantastic

[JA]

Sounds like a great adventure with some wonderful results. Beautiful images Joe:thumbsup:

Out of sheer curiosity, I'd love to know whether there was any naked eye visibility of the Aurora and if so how faint it was compared with the images.

Best
JA

[OzEclipse]

Hi JA,

It was a spectacular naked eye event, bright enough for me to view in full colour. In fact I left intervalometers driving the two cameras relatively unattended, kept my screen based device use to a minimum and just enjoyed the show. I did snap a couple of handheld iPhone pics and post them to the Aurora group based around Canberra & SE NSW that I'm a member of but I tried to keep my eyes on the sky. The images were only captured at 10s f2.8 @ ISO 3200.

So I could see a slightly desaturated version of what you see in the photos.

The green on the horizon was a bit washed out at times, a whitish grey-green. I suspect that was the air pollution/extinction altering the colour and reducing the intensity. Other times the green was more vivid especially when it extended to a slightly higher elevation.

The auroral arc (general broad red glow) was red to the naked eye up to just below the southern cross naked eye. The vertical pillars were white and pulsating to become red. I was seeing pulsations of those pillar on a sub-second time scale. The pillars were more distinct to the eye because they were moving east to west (left to right across the southern sky) so slightly blurred on the 10s exposures.

The location was the Birdcage Rest Area on the Sturt Highway(see attached map). Nominally a Bortle 1 location and more importantly, nearest medium sized towns and cities to the south were 200-300km south, Bendigo, Echuca, Shepparton, and Albury-Wodonga. The photos show no sign of light domes from those towns on the horizon and I couldn't see any.

I have adjusted the attached photo as best I can, to resemble my perception of the visual appearance in colour and saturation and apparent light intensity.

[strongmanmike]

Thanks for that Joe...

:eyepop: Reeeeally lamenting the weather prevented me being at Eagleview for this...faaaaark :sadeyes:

Mike

[Leo.G]

WOW, stunning images!

[JA]

Thanks so much for that Joe. I almost feel like I was there. Also thankyou for going to the trouble to adjust your image to give a semblance of what it looked like to the naked eye. :thumbsup:

Next time I'll try to get there! Maybe AR3664 will still have some or even gained some more juice when/if it comes around again.

Best
JA

[Garyh]

Those Aurora pics are awesome!
Only wish I took more notice of these storms coming in and drove out to Moree or further west to get a clear sky? Way too cloudy at home with misty clouds and drizzle :(
Maybe that sunspot group will come back with all barrels firing?

[Derek Klepp]

Joe thanks for that adjusted pic.The media tends to like to overstimulate the public.And although I missed the show I did view Auroral activity it was just very low key in Tassie before the event.Just a whiteish haze in the low horizon clouds but dancing up and down.
Derek