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

91

Taken another 11 seconds after the previous photo.

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

90

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

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

89

Aurora was starting to get very active!

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

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

87

This was Very bright aurora (notice shutter speed).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

78

More Aurora.

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

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

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.