måndag 15 oktober 2012

Solar Storm

After a strong geomagnetic storm on Oct 13, bright auroras have been seen over much of the planet - also far south of the aurora zone. When the storm first hit us, North America was on the night side and here in Scandinavia it was bright day.

The following nights have been characterized by mainly strong pulsating auroras covering the entire sky with the occasional surge in intensity creating curtains, rays and coronas shining through the "aurora haze".

One effect of being in the middle of a storm as soon as the sun set was that the most prominent parts of the Milky Way was still high up in the sky and the auroras coloured it in red and green.  The Andromeda Galaxy can be seen as a "smudge" in the lower right of this photo.



Milky Way and Auroras

8 kommentarer:

  1. Svar
    1. Usj? Fint også uten måne, og man kan få med mye flott stjernehimmel! Skulle ønske jeg hadde tid å bruke på komet-fotografering med 300mm nå når månen endelig er ute av veien :-)

      Radera
  2. Virkelig flott! Med månen ute av veien åpenbarer det seg en helt ny himmel, den perfekte bakgrunn for nordlyset :)

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Tusen takk for det Øyvind. Brukte 30 sekunder på dette bildet v f/2.8 og ISO 800, ganske utrolig hvor mye man får med av melkeveien.

      Mvh, Fredrik

      Radera
  3. Yum yum yum! Nice pic!

    I am a bit astonished that you were able to get "static" stars with such a long exposure. With 30s of exposure, I usually began to see star trails ... Were you shooting 180˚ from the ground or something?

    Cheers!

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Thanks! I have found out that I get problems with star-trailing at around 40 seconds at this focal length (14 mm as used here). If I go up to around 20mm, I need to keep the exposures below 20s, and above that it of course gets more and more critical. For the Milky Way, I normally take several 30 sec exposures and stack them afterwards or rotate the camera to compensate for the Earths rotation.. This shot is taken almost directly above my head, maybe at at angle of 80 degrees or so, facing south.

      Again, thank you for your kind words :-)

      Cheers, Fredrik

      Radera
    2. Ho alright! Didn't know that a few millimeters had so much incidence...
      Thanks for the tip Fredrik!

      Radera