Part-time prevaricator
The aurora was everywhere. These photos are taken facing in all directions.
The top photo is a 7‑image panorama, facing due west. The photos of the trains passing are both facing south.
Continue reading “Remembrance Day light show”
Not even the full moon could overwhelm the northern lights tonight.
I shot until my batteries all died. I was glad I’d thought to grab a toque, but I would’ve appreciated heavier gloves, too.
Continue reading “Aurora, Nov. 5, 2025”
As I was going to bed last night, I took a look out the window. The forecast had said it was supposed to be partly cloudy overnight, but the sky looked pretty clear. I set up a camera in the spare room, pointed out the window, and let it snap away. I figured I’d get some star trails out of it if nothing else.
The aurora decided to make an appearance. It was just getting ramped up when my camera battery died around 2:30am, but I got a couple good shots out of it.
Oh, and the star trails turned out pretty good, too. They’re at the top, and are taken from about the first hour and a half of the evening.
The video below is the full two hours and thirty-six minutes, but it runs at 60x so that one second of video is one minute of real[1]Whatever that might mean, relativistically. time.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Whatever that might mean, relativistically. |
|---|
Well, it happened again.
As usual, in the timelapse below, one second of video is one minute of real time.
Thanks, Neal, for showing me a new spot, and for hanging out in the dark with me for an hour or so.
It was clear to the west, so I grabbed my camera and took a chance.
It was not clear to the north.
Once I got home, the sky to the east was clear. I set up a camera in our spare room, aimed due east, and let it click until the batteries died. Between 11:30pm and 2:30am it got these gems, plucked from almost 2000 frames.
These photos, I have to keep reminding myself, were taken inside the city. Normally I’m happy when I get light like this a few kilometres out of town, where it’s starting to get properly dark. These aurora were competing with streetlights, and winning.
Oh yeah, I also turned the 2000ish photos from the spare room into a timelapse.
Were the northern lights out last night? Yes.
Was I out last night? Also yes.
Continue reading “Aurora, Oct. 6, 2024”
The second night[1]First night is here. of the show was a bit tamer, and tempered by smoke in the air that amplified all the ground lights. Still, it was a good night. I spent a couple hours snapping photos with my friend Kevin.
The smoke turned the crescent moon reddish-orange, too.
Timelapse. See if you can tell when the light was strong enough that I could see it reflecting off my hi-vis vest.
I was out from about 10:30pm till about half past midnight. It was another good night.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | First night is here. |
|---|
A few days ago, the sun launched like 5 CMEs our way. This naturally excited all the aurora nerds, myself included[1]I charged all my camera batteries and tried to keep my expectations tempered..
CMEs are the usual cause of auroras, and when you get more than one at a time, the aurora show is usually going to be more intense. So when night fell and the data was[2]were still looking intense[3]The KP index, for example, was between 7 and 9, its maximum; most of the really intense shows I’ve seen were at KP6 or so, I packed my gear and headed west of the city to one of the spot I like to use for aurora photos.
I arrived with daylight still fading and started setting up. There was another car nearby; they, too, were there to watch the show.
Here’s the first shot I got, unedited except for straightening and cropping. Even in the twilight you can see the purple/pinkish lines of aurora.
As it got dark, the lights got brighter. I had two DSLRs running, and I snapped a few photos with my phone, too. Apparently my new phone has a better camera than the old one, or else it’s better at post-processing, because those shots were pretty good if I do say so myself.
I was there from about 10:15pm till just around midnight. My friend Neal came for a visit, and there were about 3 or 4 other cars that showed up on the stretch of road, too.
OK, enough talking; here are the photos. All the DSLR photos were taken at 5 second exposures, apeture f/2.8 or f/1.8 on the 50mm lens[4]ie, as wide open as the lenses would shoot, ISO 1600. The phone photos were taken on night mode, using whatever automatic settings the phone decided would work best.
First up: the DSLRs.
And here are the photos from my phone.
And a couple of time-lapse videos. In each video, 1 second is 1 minute of real time.
