astrophotography

Aurora, Aug. 19–20, 2022

Posted on by Patrick
Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022

Last night, the auro­ra data looked good, and also the sky was clear (unlike oth­er nights late­ly). I packed my cam­era and tri­pod, then head­ed out to one of my favourite spots (Twin Pines Field, let’s call it) about 10:45pm.

Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022
Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022
Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022
Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022
Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022
Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022
Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022
Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022
Aurora Borealis, Aug. 20, 2022 (through a misted-over lens)
Remem­ber, kids, wipe your lens

The tem­per­a­ture dropped while I was out, going from about 24°C to 17°C. Every­thing got coat­ed with a slick of dew, including—as you can see in the last photo—my lens[1]Actu­al­ly, it was the trans­par­ent UV fil­ter over the lens, which was much eas­i­er to wipe clean. Phew..

All told, I shot almost a thou­sand images, each one a 5‑second expo­sure[2]Nerds: 11mm, 5s, f/2.8, ISO 3200., which con­ve­nient­ly means that mak­ing a time­lapse at 12 frames a sec­ond cre­ates a video where 1 sec­ond of video = 1 minute of real time. So my hour and twen­ty min­utes at Twin Pines Field con­dens­es into a minute and twen­ty sec­onds for your edutainment.

Enjoy!

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 Actu­al­ly, it was the trans­par­ent UV fil­ter over the lens, which was much eas­i­er to wipe clean. Phew.
↑2 Nerds: 11mm, 5s, f/2.8, ISO 3200.

On a cloudy night

Posted on by Patrick
Lighthing on the horizon

The auro­ra fore­cast was great, but the earth­ly fore­cast was clouds, clouds, clouds. I ven­tured out any­way, hop­ing against hope for a small break in the clouds.

On the back road I chose, there were clouds all around, and lightning—lots of it—to the south and east. I did­n’t hear any thun­der, but there were moments where the clouds lit up from with­in. I man­aged to get one bright bolt in focus.

Lighthing on the horizon
Lightning
A clos­er look

Look­ing up, I saw that there was indeed a break in the clouds, just large enough for Jupiter to shine through. If you view the pho­to full-size, you’ll see two moons as well: Cal­lis­to on the left and Ganymede on the right (if I’m using this tool correctly).

Jupiter, with Callisto and Ganymede visible

Then, before head­ing home, I decid­ed to take a cou­ple shots of the north­ern sky. There was a hint of green to it. This is the best pho­to I man­aged of the auro­ra try­ing to peek through the clouds.

Clouds with a bit of auroral green

And then I went home.

The Milky Way, just off Hwy 2

Posted on by Patrick

I left the house last night around 11:30pm and head­ed south by south­east, look­ing for a nice dark spot to get some Milky Way pho­tos. I got set up on a grav­el road about 3 miles east of the junc­tion of High­ways #10 and #2, and start­ed snap­ping. Here are some of the shots I liked the most.

Milky Way
Milky Way

I had intend­ed to take an hour’s worth of pho­tos, but my cam­era bat­tery died after about 47 min­utes and I did­n’t notice for a while (I was read­ing in the car). Oh well, so it goes. Here’s the 47 min­utes com­pressed into a few sec­onds’ worth of time­lapse video.

Then, as I was leav­ing, I noticed the moon was set­ting over a small pond, so I got a shot of that, too.

Crescent moon reflected in a pond

Some faint aurora

Posted on by Patrick

It’s been a while since I went out chas­ing auro­ra. Tonight the clouds stayed away, and the tem­per­a­ture, while chilly, did­n’t feel like it was going to kill me. I got a cou­ple shots of the auro­ra, faint and hug­ging the north­ern horizon…

Aurora borealis
Aurora borealis

…and also an hour or so’s worth of star trails, includ­ing what looks like an irid­i­um flare. (It looks like my cam­era moved at some point ear­ly in the hour. I did­n’t jos­tle it; maybe the wind shift­ed it slightly.)

Star Trails