my2boggan
By the Light of Jupiter
Aurora predictors are not always right, it seems. It was the first crystal clear night in several weeks. The waning crescent moon was a long way from rising. I checked my favourite aurora predictor (softservenews.com) and it called for an "active" aurora night (KP level 4). However, every time I checked the current status, it told me "quiet" (level 0). I decided to head out and admire the starfield instead.
The temperature was a crisp -25 C. Walking out onto the ice with my dog, Friend, I found a good location angled towards the setting spiral arm with some decent foreground interest. Setting up these shots is tricky because it's impossible to compose through either the viewfinder or the live view. You have to guess, take a test shot, recompose, test again, and repeat.
As I was kneeling to shoot, the ice let out some rolling cracks, booms, and moans which I could feel beneath me. Friend was most unsettled by this, which added an interesting dimension to my shooting: I had to spend the duration of each long exposure comforting her. In truth, it was just as good for me as for her, because those surreal ice noises echoing through the crisp night isolation were very disconcerting.
Winter is great for night shoots, because the snow really does a great job reflecting starlight. In no small part on this night, Jupiter's glow really helped to set the snow aglow. It is really humbling to consider that the the photons lighting up the snow at my feet left the sun, traveled almost 800 million kilometers to Jupiter, reflected off of it's atmosphere and gassy layers, and traveled another 600 million kilometers back to us, a journey of about an hour and 15 minutes.
This image was made of one 30 second exposure for the sky and a longer bulb exposure for the foreground (about 2 minutes).
By the Light of Jupiter
Aurora predictors are not always right, it seems. It was the first crystal clear night in several weeks. The waning crescent moon was a long way from rising. I checked my favourite aurora predictor (softservenews.com) and it called for an "active" aurora night (KP level 4). However, every time I checked the current status, it told me "quiet" (level 0). I decided to head out and admire the starfield instead.
The temperature was a crisp -25 C. Walking out onto the ice with my dog, Friend, I found a good location angled towards the setting spiral arm with some decent foreground interest. Setting up these shots is tricky because it's impossible to compose through either the viewfinder or the live view. You have to guess, take a test shot, recompose, test again, and repeat.
As I was kneeling to shoot, the ice let out some rolling cracks, booms, and moans which I could feel beneath me. Friend was most unsettled by this, which added an interesting dimension to my shooting: I had to spend the duration of each long exposure comforting her. In truth, it was just as good for me as for her, because those surreal ice noises echoing through the crisp night isolation were very disconcerting.
Winter is great for night shoots, because the snow really does a great job reflecting starlight. In no small part on this night, Jupiter's glow really helped to set the snow aglow. It is really humbling to consider that the the photons lighting up the snow at my feet left the sun, traveled almost 800 million kilometers to Jupiter, reflected off of it's atmosphere and gassy layers, and traveled another 600 million kilometers back to us, a journey of about an hour and 15 minutes.
This image was made of one 30 second exposure for the sky and a longer bulb exposure for the foreground (about 2 minutes).