This week, for the first time in quite a while, Sarah and I stood in the rear garden of our home in Canada in anticipation of an approaching solar storm, and it promised to be a good one however, very often the promised aurora can fall flat or not show at all, but as you can see in the images below, not this evening.
This evening as waves of electrified gases raced through space on the solar wind, some of that energy was captured by earths magnetic shield and pulled down magnetic field lines at the poles. Once funnelled into the polar regions these charged particles excite oxygen and nitrogen to produce the incredible phenomena that fills our night skies with otherworldly illumination. The most familiar green light comes from oxygen between 100 to 300 km above the earth, pink and dark red is produced by nitrogen molecules at around 100 km. Very bright red auroras come from oxygen at altitudes above 300 km and the blue and purple come from hydrogen and helium though these are much easier for the camera to catch than for the eye to see. Monday evening was a stunning aurora, bringing to life the usually invisible magnetic field lines with vivid greens, reds and purples that encircled the city of Cochrane below. As always when watching the aurora I thought of those times years ago, when I dreamed of seeing it without ever daring to hope I actually would. Sarah left at 11pm for bed and I crawled in beside her in the early hours, freezing cold and wonderfully happy to have been able to stand beneath such an awe inspiring sight once more.
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In terms of visibility the aurora have been few this year, heavy cloud has blocked out some stunning displays and frustrated me beyond imagining at times. I actually began to wonder if the aurora was somehow causing cloud as the two seemed to combine to frustrate me with such regularity. Tonight the opposite happened, predictions for solar activity were low, it was a bright solid 2/3 rd's moon, air transparency was not great owing to airborne water vapor and low cloud floated across the horizon. Just about every condition you wouldn't want when viewing the aurora.
Having said all of that my habit of checking the skies anyway paid off. I walked out onto the balcony and immediately saw that familier green glow on the horizon. I scurried off to grab the camera gear and was soon set up shooting that beautiful light. Once I had a few shots secured in camera, I went inside and put on a thick winter jacket and my thermal boots because the t-shirt and bare feet in flip flops were no match for the conditions. I made a few shots from the balcony and then went out into the snow to get a different vantage point. When I reached the fence the house no longer blocked the wind that was whistling around the yard, it was absolutely freezing. I carried on making shots with hands in pockets squeezing the remote trigger from the warmth of that impenetrable winter jacket. This wasn't the best aurora I've shot from the yard but it was beautiful to see after so long without it. Before going back indoors I made a quick shot of the moon over the house to show how bright it was, I have to say it did bring some excellent light to the foreground of the aurora shots. We managed to get another aurora through the clouds tonight so I thought I would make a short video of it using about 30 frames repeated to provide a 3 second stop motion video. Sarah and I both stood out on the lawn for about 20 minutes to share this lovely event then, as the aurora melted away, I stayed out for a little longer shooting the milky way. It was really nice to share an aurora with Sarah as she is (more often than not) in bed sleeping when it begins. Tonight she had just gone to bed so I had time to tell her it was happening and see if she wanted to get up, I'm glad she did as it's always much better sharing this wonderful phenomena 'live' than recounting the event the next day. The aurora returned with a vengeance last night fighting it's way through the low hazy cloud that refused to budge. Down in the bow river valley the mist was rising as air temperatures dipped to generate a hard frost across the landscape.
I stood outside in jogging pants, T-shirt and flip flops checking my settings and trying to capture the incredible light spires that reached toward the stars. At 1am I thought "I really should go get a coat and some boots on", but it's almost impossible to leave such a sight as the sprite like bursts dance across the horizon, they are fleeting and you just don't want to miss any. Ultimately the cold won out and I ran in and grabbed my jacket and winter boots before returning to the show. By 2am the cloud was ruining things altogether and I gave up and went to bed to put my cold feet on Sarah and laugh about it. One of the best things about a Canadian winter is the more frequent aurora sightings due to longer and darker nights and no matter how many times it occurs I'll be out there watching again. The aurora is predicted to be very good later this week, unfortunately so is the cloud cover. So I thought I would stay up late and shoot the aurora last night just in case it's too cloudy later in the week. As an experiment I set up one camera and 16-35mm lens for a star trail shot and used a different one and 24-70mm lens for the aurora shots. As it turns out the aurora wasn't great but it did make for an interesting addition to the star trail image. Low clouds to the left of the shot erased some of the star trails but the combined glow of more than a hundred images stacked together made the aurora 'pop' on the right to distract away from the darker area opposite. There's a long satellite trail in there too but I really couldn't be bothered searching it out and erasing it for this shot so it remains. As I was packing up the star trail camera I thought I'd make a few more aurora shots and was lucky enough to see and capture a nice shooting star on the horizon which can be seen the last image on the gallery below. If you're interested in making your own star trail images you can click here for more information on how to do it.
The aurora is always a welcome sight, when there is potential for an occurrence it's always exciting. Will it come, will there be clouds preventing a sighting, will it be weak or strong, dancing across the night sky or just a slow glow. It still has me going in and out of the house, to and from the balcony scouring the night sky for the faintest hint of anomalous light. Tonight was no exception and though we had some low cloud it was intermittent, allowing a few reasonable images, the best of which was the long 'flute' of light vertically stretched out across the night sky to the west of the city. It was a good display tonight with both vertical lights and the usual green 'clouds' to the east of the city,and that weird 'flute' to the west. The clouds returned just after 1am so I packed away the gear and went to bed happy with another aurora sighting.
I was looking for a specific shot for the 52 project tonight when a weak aurora appeared over the the hill, in no time at all it developed into a crazy wave with spikes reaching to the heavens, I only managed a few shots before it disappeared again faster than it came. I make no apology for posting 'yet another' aurora as it is simply too wonderful not to share.
Just a couple of nights ago we got a glimpse of a faint aurora on the horizon, our first for a while. Tonight it returned and for a short time we got a great display of movement and multi coloured flares, best of all it came early so we could watch it together.
Last night at midnight there was a familiar green glow of auroral activity on the horizon over Cochrane. It wasn't a full display of dancing shards of light that twist and turn across the night sky it was more of a suggestion, but I couldn't resist at least one shot. In summer it's hardly dark at midnight, so with the days shortening toward winter these 'lesser' auroras are now visible again and it feels like the return of an old friend. I will never tire of this phenomenon no matter how often or how faint it might be when I see it
Just before bed last night I got another 'red alert' message from Aurorawatch and wandered outside to take a look expecting the usual cloud or moon to wipe out a light aurora, instead I was greeted by a spectacular show. I spent 3 hours out on the balcony and around the garden shooting a wonderful display of purple and green (the purple being nitrogen gas and the green oxygen) There are no captions for the images below as they are clearly self explanatory.
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AuthorWe arrived in Calgary, Canada on 29th December 2011 to continue our journey. This blog is intended to keep our family and friends informed whilst we explore Canada.You can use the RSS feed below to stay updated. Categories
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