CapturingTheNight
17-07-2012, 07:25 AM
Hi all,
With the CME from the sun due to hit last Saturday night and with nothing better to do I decided to try and chase clear skies as far south as I could. Looking at all the cloud forecasts it looked like there were two options. Up and over the snowy mountains to around Orbost or south west to around the Grampians area. I love the Grampians so I headed there. After an eight hour drive I arrived to find the Grampians still enveloped in mist and rain but I decided to trust the predictions and headed up to The Balconies lookout. Unfortunately the weather just didn't clear. I managed one quick test shot in between the rain which shows a faint green something on the southern horizon but there is just too much cloud to make out any detail. So I am still saying that I have yet to witness and photograph any aurora.
In hindsight I probably stayed at that location way too long and should have moved on earlier but I ended up waiting until about 2:30am before I finally gave up and headed further north to try and at least get one nightsky shot out of the trip. Around Horsham the clouds finally started to break up a bit and I went out to Mt Arapiles to try and get the Milky Way setting over those amazing rock formations lit up by the light from the crescent moon rising on the horizon at about 5am.
It really wasn't my night. For when the clouds parted enough to allow me to get the Milky Way, the moon was hidden behind thick cloud and I couldn't get any detail out of the foreground.
Here is the result of a 16 hour road trip and 36 hours without sleep.
"Australia"
Canon 5D Mk II
14mm F/2.8 lens
9 vertical images panorama
119121
Cheers
Greg
PS- Orbost looked like it stayed completely clear. Doh!
With the CME from the sun due to hit last Saturday night and with nothing better to do I decided to try and chase clear skies as far south as I could. Looking at all the cloud forecasts it looked like there were two options. Up and over the snowy mountains to around Orbost or south west to around the Grampians area. I love the Grampians so I headed there. After an eight hour drive I arrived to find the Grampians still enveloped in mist and rain but I decided to trust the predictions and headed up to The Balconies lookout. Unfortunately the weather just didn't clear. I managed one quick test shot in between the rain which shows a faint green something on the southern horizon but there is just too much cloud to make out any detail. So I am still saying that I have yet to witness and photograph any aurora.
In hindsight I probably stayed at that location way too long and should have moved on earlier but I ended up waiting until about 2:30am before I finally gave up and headed further north to try and at least get one nightsky shot out of the trip. Around Horsham the clouds finally started to break up a bit and I went out to Mt Arapiles to try and get the Milky Way setting over those amazing rock formations lit up by the light from the crescent moon rising on the horizon at about 5am.
It really wasn't my night. For when the clouds parted enough to allow me to get the Milky Way, the moon was hidden behind thick cloud and I couldn't get any detail out of the foreground.
Here is the result of a 16 hour road trip and 36 hours without sleep.
"Australia"
Canon 5D Mk II
14mm F/2.8 lens
9 vertical images panorama
119121
Cheers
Greg
PS- Orbost looked like it stayed completely clear. Doh!