Massive Aurora!!!!! with Photos!

[ballaratdragons]

I've got LOTS!!!!!!

[h0ughy]

got a pic?
this is the index so i can see its active

[ballaratdragons]

Woo-hooooooo, so bright!!!!!!

[ballaratdragons]

It's sooooo beatiful :eyepop:

Pink and Green!

[ballaratdragons]

This large bright outburst started at 11pm AEDST and is still going!
Not as bright as at the start but still looks great :)

The main large area on the map isn't even here yet :eyepop:
Looks to be about half an hour away :thumbsup:

[Jen]

oh you lucky devil :thumbsup:

[aijii]

arghhhh

[ballaratdragons]

Here is the Aurora I am watching and have photographed: (also showing my location and angle of view of main part of Aurora)

[ballaratdragons]

There is another chunk heading this way closer than the main body!!

get out there and look for it folks. About 10 - 15 minutes away from now (now 11:40pm)

[ballaratdragons]

This is the one on its way I marked by blue ring:

[aijii]

Still going?

[ballaratdragons]

Probably Aijii , but I am clouded out now :sadeyes:

Going to pack up now and head back to the house to post the pics :)
They look fantastic on the camera LCD screen. Looked good by eye too :)

Back soon with some pics :thumbsup:

[CometGuy]

Great news Ken, can't wait for the pic's.

Boy I miss seeing the Aurora (too far north) :(

Terry

[Forgey]

Nice Ken, i didnt see anything, too much light pollution :(, can't wait to see what you got !

[Davi5678]

I saw it it! Thought I was about to start having a migraine, then I realised it stayed in the same bit of sky, lol!
I was out testing my new astrotrac and got some of it in the bottom corner of the images

[mishku]

Huzzah!! Even I, a city dweller managed to see the faintest lights (what wasn't drowned out by the lights of the city and ship's lights on the bay - parenthetically, why so many lights, ships??)

Big thanks to my mates Davi5678 for the heads up, and Ken for enough information that I could flee the house with enough time to see a little something :)

[Rob_K]

Thanks for the alert Ken! :thumbsup: Nothing visible naked eye here but I have hills up to 10 deg high around the horizon.

My 400D's temporarily out of action (CF card carked it) so I had a try with a P&S - ended up using auto with ISO set at 3200 which gave me 1 sec exposures. And there seems to be some green colour showing in the south after I mangled a stack of shots (BIG contrast adjustment)! Exciting but really need a better camera to be sure.

Tried the long exposure mode which gives 15 sec but you can't change the ISO in that mode and the camera was selecting ISO 100!!! :mad2:

Cheers -

[Rob_K]

Nyeh, maybe the green in my shot has some other origin. :shrug: Great aurora pictures turning up, all of them red. Check this out, from Castlemaine, Vic:
http://members.westnet.com.au/mmatti/sc.htm

Cheers -

[ballaratdragons]

I'm Glad some of you caught some of the show :thumbsup:

I am going to try do an animation of all the frames to show it dancing. It was lovely to see.

Well, here's one of my images :)
No Processing except a quick run through Noise Ninja, otherwise it's straight from the camera :)

[Forgey]

Nice shot Ken ! cant wait to see ya animation.

[ballaratdragons]

Here ya go Paula.
I had to make it really small in size to fit in here. Can only go to max 200kb in here.
Being reduced in size, and duration really kills the effect.
This is nearly an hours worth of Aurora!

[Forgey]

Really nice Ken, next Aurora alert im going to have to go for a drive away from light pollution !

[ballaratdragons]

and another view slightly to the Southwest :thumbsup:
This was after the Big show faded and this one started up but was fainter.

[ballaratdragons]

and another :)

[ballaratdragons]

and this interesting frame:

[JB80]

Awesome. :D

Great pics and I'm insanely jealous.

[Deeno]

Congratulations Ken!

Your persistence over the last week has finally paid off :thumbsup:

[sheeny]

Thanks for posting, Ken, that is quite special.

Al.

[leon]

Top stuff Ken, thanks for the posting.

Leon

[h0ughy]

right place, right time, going right off, I'm left speachless

[gary]

Fabulous Ken!

[ZeroID]

Cloud, Rain, Wind and way too far North ... ... ...

So thanks for the cool pix even if I have to enjoy it vicariously

[aijii]

nice work mate!

I was too tired, couldn't see anything from where I am :(

[Lester]

Wow, Ken thanks for the images, they look great. I could feel the excitement from your first post.

All the best.

[jjjnettie]

:D You lucky lucky lucky lucky buggas.
Thanks for sharing, it's amazing. :D

[niko]

awesome stuff Ken - congratulations!!!!

:eyepop::eyepop::eyepop::eyepop::ey epop::eyepop:

[RickS]

Nice images, Ken!

It's interesting that you're mostly getting reds instead of greens. The red is from atomic oxygen which is more prevalent at higher atmospheric altitude, so I wonder if this is a result of seeing the aurora from further away.

Cheers,
Rick.

[stardust steve]

excellent! Very happy for you, your perseverance has paid off:thumbsup: i was foolishly trying to take pics of Mars and Saturn by holding my camera up to the t-ring ( no tring adapter yet, should be getting one today) when i should have been looking for the Aurora.

Looking forward to seeing some pics:) Edit. i just viewed the pics well done they look great. Were they as bright with the naked eye as in the images?

[DavidU]

I saw it ! A red/violet colour. Nice pix Ken.

[Nico13]

Great shots Ken, I was out last night but looking north, the house shields the south and sth west.
Didn't give it a thought as I was busy testing some new software, bugga:mad2: maybe tonight again but will be at work so no cameras allowed.

[traveller]

Wow, great stuff Ken. Unfortunately, south is the city from where I live. Make sure you have that showing during the March Camp!
Bo

[rogerg]

Great stuff Ken :thumbsup: Would have been awesome to see in person :)

This is my best from last night in Perth, the aurora is the little bit of bright pink bottom left, in case you miss it :) :
http://www.rogergroom.com/items/aurora_australis_12th_march_2012_pe rth

[aijii]

to the melbournites, where were y'all when you saw this ?

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks everyone.

It was an exciting night.
The clouds rolled in and ended the show but I was entertained plenty by then.



Steve, it was an absolutely beautiful sight to see. The whole area of the sky turned Pink, then some brighter rays started to appear over the next few minutes, then they just kept growing and changing, as one would start to fade another would brighten. There was a show of Green across the bottom, but in the images it looks a pale Yellow.

The Aurora was not quite as bright as in the images, but still quite easy to see by eye. That's how I knew when to start imaging, when I saw it.

I rang Cheryl, and her and my son raced out to have a look and they said they could see it. And that was with no dark adaption, so it gives an example of how easy it was to see.

I hope we get more. It is a stunning sight.
Next year is suppose to be a lot more active than this year :thumbsup:

The technical: Canon 350d, 800 iso, 30 seconds exposure. 75% Moon. Dark location.

[Suzy]

Yeah- what she said! :lol:

Super dooper UBER awesomeness. :eyepop:

Even tho I'm soooo jealous :P I'm very happy for you that you caught this amazing event and thanks heaps for sharing the pics, very much enjoying them. :D

[barx1963]

I was out testing an EP just on moonrise last night. Looking to the south I thought the sky looked brighter than normal and the views were a bit washed out. I just thought it was moonage and LP as normal but it was a little unusual so I going to count that as "possible" aurora observation!!;);)

Malcolm

[Paddy]

Oh, envy or what!!! I've been out looking but last night we had so much smoke from a 500 ha prescribed burn down the road that I could hardly see Crux! I am greener than any aurora! Nice pics Ken and I hope you get some more. Amazing to get colour - I've only seen them in greyscale the times we've had them visible from home. Can you organise some more for the camp?

[bartman]

Awesome Ken,
I had a look last night but didnt have much luck.


Yeah there was a bit of cloud and haze around not to mention a bit of smoke from some of the fires around.....
Bratman

[acropolite]

Bummer, I looked outside at around 10:30 and saw nothing so I assumed it wasn't going to happen. Never mind there will be more.

[ballaratdragons]

Phil! :eyepop: You should know better than that :lol:

[multiweb]

That looks great Ken. I can feel the excitement in your posts. You've been looking for them and you've nailed it. Well done. :thumbsup:

[Jen]

Good on ya Ken :thumbsup: glad you got some pics woohooo :D

Now order some more of that for camp please :prey::prey:

[erick]

Marvelous, Ken. :thumbsup:

[acropolite]

Yeah, I got caught like that a few years ago as well when the Aurora kicked in around midnight. It certainly is awe inspiring to see so much colour.

[ballaratdragons]

Ahhhh yes, but Roger, you made up for it the other night with your spectacular shot :thumbsup:

[danielsun]

That's awesome Ken! :thumbsup:I was out having a binocular visual last night but missed out the night before :( I am amazed that it was so high up latitude wise and didn't think we would ever get to see one.
Great stuff Ken, I sure hope I get to see one one day.

Cheers Daniel.

[risingmoon]

So breathtakingly beautiful:eyepop:

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks Sandra.

First time I've ever photographed Aurora. :)
Pretty exciting :thumbsup:
3rd time I've seen it in my whole life.
Once as a child in Sydney, once as a Teenager in Sydney, and now as a 55 year old here in Victoria :lol:
I don't count the small sighting 3 years ago as I'm not 100% sure it was an Aurora. It was tiny and light grey.

[mill]

Ken we did see it at the footy oval in Snake Valley some years ago from the room at the second floor.
Some photo's were taken but i never seen those :(

[ballaratdragons]

Ahhhh OK, thanks Martin. :thumbsup:
All I remember was that there was You, me, Bryan and I think Eric still there when we saw it, but I couldn't be sure if it was real or not.
My memory is going :lol:
I think Bryan, me, and someone else was down on the observing field at the time and Bryan pointed it out. :shrug: :lol: