Saturday Night's auroral event.

[OzEclipse]

We (NSW aurora group) watched strong magnetometer readings with frustration all day Saturday March 22. Good high readings all through the afternoon while we were bathed in sunlight. The field strength died off as darkness settled. I captured some images during twilight that didn't show much. As soon as astronomical twilight ended 9:35UT, I captured the tail end of the substorm. The storm appears slightly offset to the SSW. But I think it's just that the faint auroral glow was affected by cloud and LP from a mine glowing in the SSE. In hindsight, I should have used a longer focal length lens but then David Wheeler will complain about the silhouette of the power pole. :rofl:

The emission was quite faint, nothing visible to the naked eye and I needed three stops more exposure than usual to get even a faint display to show up. The Sept 12 event wasn't one of the two BIG events last year.

This exposure:
Pentax K1 ISO 3200 40s 14mm f2.8
Camera was on fixed tripod. Image was star tracked using the image stabiliser.


Sept 12 event:
Pentax K1 ISO 3200 8s 28mm f3.5 (3 stops less than first exposure)
Image on fixed tripod, no tracking.


Cheers

Joe

[tim.anderson]

Both nice, but No. 1 certainly grabs the attention, almost as if you are looking into a lake.

Regards

Tim Anderson

[Leo.G]

Stunning as always Joe!
We didn't get anything but cloud and rain locally. I keep seeing the solar activity and mention of likely auroras but never seem to get the good weather, much like eclipses.....
To think I used to live in Young and I moved to this miserable climate.

[astronobob]

Those are great Joe, The 14mm covers some serious sky, , really like the 1st one, a variety of realistic colours and gives a good sense of light dynamics, very natural scene indeed, I can feel the chill :cold: :thumbsup: