Went to a new spot last night which overlooks West Island and has a nice unobstructed view of the horizon.
I got to the site just after dark and I had hoped I could detect the aurora at KP5 even during the moon light. Sadly this was just very faint so I had to wait until moonset. During the time that elapsed the geomagnetic storm subsided to eventually be around KP3 at moonset. There was good airglow and barely any aurora left but it was there. This image is part of a time lapse I did of the event and the auroral crown is easily seen in that.
I eventually left the site at 130am and headed home knowing that I had captured something but once again missed a full burst of KP5 event with a great horizon.
I have tried to keep the processing subtle. I did not need to do much saturation as it was just so saturated straight of the camera. Some slight curves work and some noise control. All in photoshop.
Click here for video of aurora. Look to middle of panel near the horizon. Now flicker free video
Last edited by Paul Haese; 20-05-2013 at 09:52 PM.
Nice Paul. Maybe include a bit more foreground in the crop...2 to 3 times as much. Also, you have some flicker in the moonlit section. Were you adjusting exposures? Is your lens wide open?
Nice Paul. Maybe include a bit more foreground in the crop...2 to 3 times as much. Also, you have some flicker in the moonlit section. Were you adjusting exposures? Is your lens wide open?
The crop in the video is windows movie maker issue. I am going to need to invest in another program to get the sort of framing options I want. Unless this can be sorted in WMM. It has taken some time to decipher. The previous version was quite good, but the win 7 version has knobs on it.
You are right about the flicker, there is two problems there. One area of flicker happened for no apparent reason prior to my adjusting the exposure. I had my WB set to sunny day as normal and all other parameters as per normal and I found this flicker; very odd. As the moon set I ramped that in as best as I could to simulate natural darkening. The D4 unfortunately cannot give me complete ramping like a Canon can, but I can live with that. I adjusted the exposure from 10 seconds to 13, then to 15 then 20 and finally 25 seconds over the course of half an hour. The big step from 15-20 seconds (the only option available) present exposure issues. I need to invest in lightroom to do the exposure compensation to remove the flicker. Might look into that this week.
The crop in the video is windows movie maker issue. I am going to need to invest in another program to get the sort of framing options I want. Unless this can be sorted in WMM. It has taken some time to decipher. The previous version was quite good, but the win 7 version has knobs on it.
You are right about the flicker, there is two problems there. One area of flicker happened for no apparent reason prior to my adjusting the exposure. I had my WB set to sunny day as normal and all other parameters as per normal and I found this flicker; very odd. As the moon set I ramped that in as best as I could to simulate natural darkening. The D4 unfortunately cannot give me complete ramping like a Canon can, but I can live with that. I adjusted the exposure from 10 seconds to 13, then to 15 then 20 and finally 25 seconds over the course of half an hour. The big step from 15-20 seconds (the only option available) present exposure issues. I need to invest in lightroom to do the exposure compensation to remove the flicker. Might look into that this week.
And your lens was wide open? If not, that can be a source of flicker. With 1/2 moon -> no moon, you should be able to keep the same exposure settings throughout and add the ramp in post. Your moon image will start overexposed, but not blown out, so applying a smooth keyframe ramp in post will simulate the natural darkening. I normally do that if the moon is between 35 % and 60%.
GBdeflicker is a good option for reducing flicker if you have one of the video editing packages.
Thanks for the tips on flicker. Had not considered just start at over exposed. This is only a short snippet of the entire event. The whole video is 48 seconds long. I will use your tip from now on. More to learn.
GBdeflicker is a good option for reducing flicker if you have one of the video editing packages.
Thanks for the tip Colin on this, I bought the stand alone version today and the link at the start of the thread now has a flicker free version. Thanks for sharing this information.
