Beautiful Antarctic Aurora photos!

[Adelastro1]

Not to be outdone by the Northern Hemispherers, here are a couple of images I received from a friend, Nick Chang, working down in Antarctica at Davis base. Nick gave me permission to post them here to show everyone. I also told him to send them in to APOD and Spaceweather.com as they wouldn't receive too many from down south I suspect!

Nick is a former Physics PhD student from Adel Uni (where I work) working for AAD. He went down to Antarctica late last year to take over from another former PhD student of ours who is due to return next month. Both are working on the LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) (Govt website for more info: http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/fact-files/atmosphere/studying-the-atmosphere/probing-the-atmosphere-with-lidar). The second image below shows the LIDAR laser beam shooting up into the sky.

Image #1: taken 4th March. Nikon D7000, 18-200mm VRII lens, 20sec, f8, ISO 1600.

Image #2: taken 27th Feb. Nikon D7000, 18-200mm VRII lens, 6sec, f8, ISO 3200.

Let me know what you think and I'll pass on the comments! I'll see if I can post a couple from the other friend down there too (need to ask permission first).

Wayne

[iceman]

Amazing, what an experience that would. Both going to Antarctica to work and also seeing the aurora too!

[bartman]

Great Pics Wayne,
Hey why dont you ask your friends to join up with IIS and have them post their pics FROM Antarctica!
That would be a first for IIS surely? ........'Location : Antarctica':D
Cheers
Bartman

[FlashDrive]

Amazing ... could watch that for hours

Flash :hi:

[erick]

And I've been thinking I have to go North to fulfill this item (of two) on my bucket list.

Can we see green colours from southern Tassie at the right magic times??

Thank your friends very much, Wayne.

[Adelastro1]

Yes I will ask them for sure. I'm not sure how much they're into astronomy though, but that doesn't matter necessarily!

If I was a member back in 2000 I would have had 'Location: Maralinga'! I'm sure you wouldn't have many from there! Two opposite ends of the earth aren't they...
I really want to get to Antarctica myself to do this kind of photography. Dave who's down there, keeps saying I should do a weather observer's job for a summer cycle... I'm thinking about it!

They mentioned they have done timelapses of the auroras too so I'll see if I they have them on a website and get the link from them!

[astroboy]

Excellent shots . the only thing would be to use a wider aperture to speed up the exposure , the stars may not be so sharp but the aurora would have a bit more detail.

Thanks
Zane

[jamiep]

Simply Beautiful ... great to see some southern hemisphere photos of this ....

[Adelastro1]

Ok, my other friend (David Hosken) in Antarctica gave me permission to post a couple of his images too so here they are.

They are restricted in internet use down there since the bandwith is limited and can't necessarily upload to websites, so I'm thankful they sent me some high res images for us to use here at uni, and this is one reason I'm posting for them with their permission. Dave said that "sending through the (high res) photos the other day would have put me over my limit, but the fact I was away for the next day meant the comms guys didn't come looking for me!". Life in Antarctica I guess...

And because of these restrictions I can't get hold of one of their timelapses unfortunately, but Dave is returning next month so I'll ask him to either post the link here himself or I'll post the info on his behalf.

He also had very interesting comments about using DSLRs in the extreme cold which I'll also post in the equipment forum as well as here. He had issues using a Canon 7D. Nick's images were taken in about -20C with a Nikon D7000 and Dave's - who knows because two were taken in winter in June!!

Dave said:
"the Canon 7D had issues from the start... auto-focus, backplane focu sing and extremely high noise levels which made it impossible to use. You know there is a serious issue when your photos taken with a point and shoot are far better. It is one of those things that happens. Nikon and Canon have advantages/disadvantages... the build in timer is a bonus for the Nikon, but it causes battery issues in the extreme cold... and thus the battery life for Nikons seemed to degrade very quickly over winter due to this. That said, the external cables for the Canon freeze and become brittle... although I don't know of anyone over our winter having problems with shutters with Canons, but they did in the extreme cold for Nikon. At the end of the day, in my opinion, it comes down to the user... especially down here...although back in the real world I'm sure there are different advantages for each. Here, things more slow and its usually either white or black..."

Image #1: 2nd June 2011 at 9am! Canon 500D, 25 sec, f3.5, ISO 800 at 20mm.

Image #1: 6th June 2011, Canon 500D, 15 sec, f3.5, ISO 800 at 20mm.

Image #1: 28th Feb 2012, Canon 500D, 5 sec, f3.5, ISO 800 at 10mm.

Again, any comments I'll pass on to them (if they haven't joined ISS yet!)

[multiweb]

Beautiful images. Looks very cold. :cold:

[Derek Klepp]

Thanks Wayne much appreciated

[iceman]

Beautiful images!