Airglow and Zodiacal Light from Wiruna

[AstroJason (Jason)]

Well last night was interesting. We watched the clouds head further and further east as the sun set. We were getting ready for what would seem to be a perfect, cloudless night. After getting my polar alignment ready to go for a full night of imaging, clouds started to appear. The wind had changed direction and was now coming from the east and it was strong. Before we knew it, we were completely clouded out.

Decided to call it a night by about 10:30. I could hardly sleep with the wind buffeting my tent. By about 4am nature was calling so I got up, the wind was still howling. As I got out of the tent I looked up in my sleepy daze and think to myself "Am I dreaming?"... a billion stars shine over my head. I couldn't believe it. I quickly made my way back from the loos and set up the camera just on my tripod and took a couple photos around the field.

It stayed clear until about 5am, until once again, it had clouded over. This time I saw flashes of lightening on the eastern horizon so I decided to call it a night a second time.

Glad I managed to get something from this short trip out to Wiruna. This is a 2 image, vertical pano with my 6D and 16-35mm lens at f2.8. ISO3200. Could see all that airglow on the screen but not visually. While I only noticed the Zodiacal Light once I began processing the image. I am not sure if that is some left over aurora from mid week at the bottom right of the image or light pollution from some near by town.

Hopefully next month will be a little better.

Cheers,

Jase

[gregbradley]

An all too familiar scenario!

Nice image. You got some nice airglow there. I think that is light pollution from a town in the bottom right horizon.

Greg.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Great shot Jason!...can't wait till SPSP

Mike

[glend (Glen)]

Well Jason, there's always Bretti!

[AstroJason (Jason)]

Cheers boys.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

An all too familiar scenario!

Nice image. You got some nice airglow there. I think that is light pollution from a town in the bottom right horizon.

Greg.

Yeah Greg I wasn't sure if it would be possible for it to be aurora as I think the KP index was ~3 at the time. I was hoping to capture any remaining scraps from the max which happened midweek. Maybe next time.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Great shot Jason!...can't wait till SPSP

Mike

Same here Mike, fingers crossed the weather is kind to us again this year.

Originally Posted by glend

Well Jason, there's always Bretti!

Yeah Glen, would like to get back up to Bretti for a few days but its very difficult for me now, especially with my new work commitments. Would like to stay up there for a long imaging session but I just can't get the time off for something like that right now.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Beautiful mate, well done

Right hand side glow definitely looks pinkish.

[Ross G]

Nice looking photo Jason.

Ross.

[rogerg (Roger)]

Nice image and story I'd prefer the tree in top right gone, but it's not killing the image

[multiweb (Marc)]

Beautiful composition and colors.