David Cartier
Powerful Auroral Storm
The Aurora gets cooking, seriously, on the morning of March 1, in northern Yukon skies. This was by far the most intense Aurora I've seen in years ... the deep red of the upper curtain just blew me away! The upper red light is generated when highly charged electrons in the solar wind interact with an isotope of oxygen which is found only hundreds of kilometers up in our planet's very tenuous outer layer of atmosphere.
And, this was an unusual and high Aurora to be sure, as throughout the hours we were absolutely transfixed by this astonishing demonstration of nature's power, there was not even a hint of the pink nitrogen line which is normally seen at the very bottom of intensely active Auroral curtains.
In my experience, the deep scarlet of Auroras such as this is usually not particularly obvious to the naked eye, though this varies with different observers. Allowing your eyes to become well dark adapted makes a big difference ... This is easily experienced, since even a very brief exposure to a flashlight beam or a set of vehicle headlights will make it suddenly much harder to visually perceive the deep red. The human eye, in general, is less sensitive to red light than any other wavelength in the spectrum. We have only the tiny microsecond which it takes for a ray of light to travel from the surface of our cornea to our brain's visual cortex, whereas a camera can, of course, accumulate light, as in this 10 second exposure.
Back in the days of film photography, (where I still am, part of the time) photographers sought out film emulsions which were especially red sensitive in order to capture this (Konica films were really good for that).
In this digital age, many beginning Aurora paparazzi make the mistake of adjusting their cameras to a night mode of shooting, lowering the red sensitivity of the camera's sensor.
It turns out that the colors of an active Aurora are more closely akin to what you see in the daytime .... Therefore, the most natural results are achieved by leaving the camera's color temperature at a daytime setting, around 5500K.
(taken using my trusty old Zenitar 16mm f2.8 lens) ..... Much more to come ... Right now I have to go out and watch the sky ........
Powerful Auroral Storm
The Aurora gets cooking, seriously, on the morning of March 1, in northern Yukon skies. This was by far the most intense Aurora I've seen in years ... the deep red of the upper curtain just blew me away! The upper red light is generated when highly charged electrons in the solar wind interact with an isotope of oxygen which is found only hundreds of kilometers up in our planet's very tenuous outer layer of atmosphere.
And, this was an unusual and high Aurora to be sure, as throughout the hours we were absolutely transfixed by this astonishing demonstration of nature's power, there was not even a hint of the pink nitrogen line which is normally seen at the very bottom of intensely active Auroral curtains.
In my experience, the deep scarlet of Auroras such as this is usually not particularly obvious to the naked eye, though this varies with different observers. Allowing your eyes to become well dark adapted makes a big difference ... This is easily experienced, since even a very brief exposure to a flashlight beam or a set of vehicle headlights will make it suddenly much harder to visually perceive the deep red. The human eye, in general, is less sensitive to red light than any other wavelength in the spectrum. We have only the tiny microsecond which it takes for a ray of light to travel from the surface of our cornea to our brain's visual cortex, whereas a camera can, of course, accumulate light, as in this 10 second exposure.
Back in the days of film photography, (where I still am, part of the time) photographers sought out film emulsions which were especially red sensitive in order to capture this (Konica films were really good for that).
In this digital age, many beginning Aurora paparazzi make the mistake of adjusting their cameras to a night mode of shooting, lowering the red sensitivity of the camera's sensor.
It turns out that the colors of an active Aurora are more closely akin to what you see in the daytime .... Therefore, the most natural results are achieved by leaving the camera's color temperature at a daytime setting, around 5500K.
(taken using my trusty old Zenitar 16mm f2.8 lens) ..... Much more to come ... Right now I have to go out and watch the sky ........