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Thursday, March 31, 2011

99



This is the last in the mini-sequence within the aurora sequence. Did you see the satellite traveling through the photos for the past week? Pretty neat, especially since I didn't know it was in the photos until I reviewed them on my computer!

Exposure time: 6s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

98



Almost there.

Exposure time: 6s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Monday, March 28, 2011

Sunday, March 27, 2011

95



This is the next photo in the sequence. I hope you don't get bored by the time I get through this mini-sequence that is taking place within the aurora sequence.

Exposure time: 6s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Saturday, March 26, 2011

94



Anyone notice anything interesting that connects yesterday's photo to today's?

Exposure time: 6s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Friday, March 25, 2011

Thursday, March 24, 2011

92



Taken another 25 seconds after the previous (but with changes to compensate for brightening aurora).

Exposure time: 2s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 800

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

91



Taken another 11 seconds after the previous photo.

Exposure time: 3s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

90



Taken 7 seconds after the previous photo. The movement can be really quite fast!

Exposure time: 3s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Monday, March 21, 2011

89



Aurora was starting to get very active!

Exposure time: 3s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Sunday, March 20, 2011

88



The top of Phil's head can be seen in this photo, viewing the aurora. There is another one where he is more visible, but the aurora does not show this spectacular coloring, which is why this is the one to be posted.

Exposure time: 2.5s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Saturday, March 19, 2011

87



This was Very bright aurora (notice shutter speed).

Exposure time: 1s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Friday, March 18, 2011

86



Here the aurora started to get very bright. The brightness is saturating this 4 second exposure!

Exposure time: 4s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 2000

Thursday, March 17, 2011

85



I got teased a bit for thinking my camera was the Hubble Space Telescope. This happened whenever I took a photo that ended up showing way more stars than we could see with our eyes.

Exposure time: 8s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 1000

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

84



The brightness of the stars and the sky that should be black are indicators of how bright or faint the aurora was at any given time. All of the photos I am posting were taking in less than three hours, and in that time the dynamics of the aurora changes quite a bit. I think with the brightest aurora I was able to get down to a one second exposure, in which the sky is very black. Most of the photos had exposures between 3 and 8 seconds.

Exposure time: 4s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 1000

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

83



I love how this photo looks like a black and white shot, but it is really taken in full color!

Exposure time: 4s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 1000

Monday, March 14, 2011

82



Another overhead view. This is one of my more favorite aurora photos that I took... not entirely sure why.

Exposure time: 4s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 1000

Sunday, March 13, 2011

81



This is a view looking nearly straight overhead. The dark stripe between the two bright arcs is often called black aurora.

Exposure time: 4s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 1000

Saturday, March 12, 2011

80



Seeing the aurora is an experience I highly recommend to everyone. The photos are beautiful... E pur si muove!

Exposure time: 4s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 1000

Friday, March 11, 2011

79



There is so much structure often seen in the aurora. Amazing, but the cause of such things (like really thin arcs) is still a mystery.

Exposure time: 4s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 1000

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

77



We were very fortunate to have clear skies the entire week of the conference. When I was last in Alaska for a rocket launch, it was sometimes hard to tell if we were seeing a blobby cloud or some very faint aurora. The trick is that you can see stars through aurora but not through clouds.

Exposure time: 6s
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 1000

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

76: begin aurora sequence

The blog is going to be getting more attention these days. I just returned from Fairbanks, Alaska, where I spent a week watching the aurora and learning about the aurora. I took hundreds of photos and want to share at least dozens of those on the blog.



All of the following aurora photos were taken on Thursday, March 3, 2011, over a time span of 2 hours and 40 minutes. I was also taking pictures on the previous Monday and Tuesday nights, but the focus of those photos is lacking.