Aurora Prospects 2012

littlema

Ok, well stayed looking at the freezing cold sky while walking down our boreen......and saw the tower on Truskmore lighting up every few seconds.....?? St Elmo's fire action due to A B? Then there was just a good glow far over Sligo town direction when this wave of light swept backwards and forwards over the sky like car headlights...it was amazing. I do hope we can see it again soon. Fat chance today....heavy snow here this morning in South Sligo.

Iancar29

IM HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMES!!

Cant believe how lucky we were up there!

GOt to see all the four classes of Aurora!! SOO AMAZING!

SOme photos coming later!!

AND Ill GET WORKING on my TIMELAPSE too!

murrayp4

little ma wrote: »

...and saw the tower on Truskmore lighting up every few seconds...

Interesting...could you describe what you saw??

Tom Cruises Left Nut

Strange, some of our comms equipment on Truskmore lost connection a good few times last night....

hellboy99

Iancar29 wrote: »

IM HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMES!!

Cant believe how lucky we were up there!

GOt to see all the four classes of Aurora!! SOO AMAZING!

SOme photos coming later!!

AND Ill GET WORKING on my TIMELAPSE too!

You certainly couldn't of timed it better, can't wait to see the pics

TURRICAN

Is there any chance of seeing this fro the south east?

Iancar29

Ok its very hard to choose but heres some of my favourites! ENJOY!













Feel free to check out more on mo bookface... http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=631736717

Iancar29

AND Heres my time-lapse.. sadly some quality lost uploading to youtube but ye... im sure youll all will still enjoy it!


WATCH IN HD ON FULL SCREEN! :cool:

FrDougalMcguire

Excellent pics lancar!

H2UMrsRobinson

Iancar29 wrote: »

AND Heres my time-lapse.. sadly some quality lost uploading to youtube but ye... im sure youll all will still enjoy it!


WATCH IN HD ON FULL SCREEN! :cool:

Beautiful, i love the bit at the end where it got even brighter !!!

Well jell !

muckish

Iancar29 wrote: »

AND Heres my time-lapse.. sadly some quality lost uploading to youtube but ye... im sure youll all will still enjoy it!

Ian,

congrats on some great photos. The time lapse is stunning. It really shows the 4 dimensions of a true aurora. What we were getting excited about here was very 2 dimensional in comparison. What settings did you use. Care to impart any photography tips you learned on your trip!

Northern lights will be on Prime Time tonight I think.:)

FrDougalMcguire

Where did u take these photos lancar?

dexter647

Amazing pics Ian...Snow and the northern lights all rolled into one. To say i'm jealous is an understatement:)

Calibos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG63OtsKC7k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVnUt5TLb8E

Steopo

Fantastic time-lapse Ian. If that was the poor quality version the full quality most be amazing

Iancar29

H2UMrsRobinson wrote: »

Beautiful, i love the bit at the end where it got even brighter !!!

Well jell !

muckish wrote: »

Ian,

congrats on some great photos. The time lapse is stunning. It really shows the 4 dimensions of a true aurora. What we were getting excited about here was very 2 dimensional in comparison. What settings did you use. Care to impart any photography tips you learned on your trip!

Northern lights will be on Prime Time tonight I think.:)

[/QUOTE]

Thanks everyone! .. Yes Muckish... thats exactly how id put it. seeing it so close right over ur head going in all directions was just crazy.The sky station was such a great experience , going up a 20 min cable cart in complete silence watching the aurora blaze away was simply fantastic. Sunday night and we all had got the shots we wanted to we wer in warming up just after 12 .. we went back out watching it kick up a bit again but we didnt go and get all our cameras again. JUst as we wer about to go get them a REALLY strong wave came and almost knotted up together producing blues! ... Shouts of excitement wer going all around ! ... IT was crazy ! , we wer all cursing ourselves for not still having our stuff wit us. Luckily we found out in the morning a picture of exactly similar thing... this being it..


Was actually crazy at the time.


Settings for most of my pics were... ISO 1600-3200 at F3.6 for 10-15 seconds
Tips , hmmm... well batteries with lads and the older cameras where the main problem, kept going dead quickly in the cold . Luckily since mine wer new worked grand. My camera frosted up once but was grand once i made sure i bagged it up b4 i brought it inside. Focusing at infinity was a problem at the start for me but got it sorted fixing it at a distant light before shooting.
Cant think of anything else really... apart from staying warm! My feet were the worst thing as i generally have bad circulation in them... so ye.. i had 4 wool pairs of socks on + thermals + snowboots... and still was goin numb at times!

One of the lads came back with minor frost bite on his hands, luckily the doctor said it wasnt one to worry much about.
-25.6 was the lowest i seen it go down to! :rolleyes:


FrDougalMcguire - Abisko Mountain Lodge Sweden 2nd place on the top 5 list to view the northern lights from

murrayp4

Anything doing at the moment- this map says we've got good viewing right now??

FrDougalMcguire

Any sightings tonight, according to this, the aurora should be overhead!! I have been driving round like a lunatic looking for the lights to no avail! Might have to go to Sweeden! (@Iancar29)

delw

Iancar29 wrote: »

AND Heres my time-lapse.. sadly some quality lost uploading to youtube but ye... im sure youll all will still enjoy it!

Thanks Ian,amazing pics & great time-lapse vid,great tune with it as well

Fully Established

Hi all does anybody here know if it would be possible to see from Dublin or is light pollution an issue.

Pangea

This site says kp is only 2
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/3

Iancar29

FrDougalMcguire wrote: »

Any sightings tonight, according to this, the aurora should be overhead!! I have been driving round like a lunatic looking for the lights to no avail! Might have to go to Sweeden! (@Iancar29)

Hi There pal.. ye i wouldnt go by this site at all to be honest. Best to keep looking at spaceweather.com & http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/3 for the best forecasts.

Iancar29

X 1.7 FLARE!!! :eek:

Departing sunspot 1402 unleashed an X2-class solar flare today, Jan. 27th, at 18:37 UT. Click on the image to view a movie of the extreme ultraviolet flash recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:

Sunspot 1402 is rotatiing onto tthe far side of the sun, so the blast site was not facing Earth. Nevertheless, energetic protons accelerated by the blast are now surrounding our planet, and an intensifying S1-class radiation storm is in progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm2JuL9RHlU

mel.b

Imagine if that sunspot had been facing earth:cool:

muckish

This KP plot is from July 14-16th 2000 after an X-5.6 flare. Could you imagine? 9 hours of KP9!!:D

scholes

Amazing pictures Ian and Timelapse video is unbelievable. I'm heading to tromso next week and hoping to see them there fingers crossed. How did you do the time lapse video did u use your dslr for this ? im bringing my 50d and tripod and hoping to get some gud shots.

Thanks:)

Iancar29

muckish wrote: »

This KP plot is from July 14-16th 2000 after an X-5.6 flare. Could you imagine? 9 hours of KP9!!:D

:eek: .... * DROOLS *

scholes wrote: »

Amazing pictures Ian and Timelapse video is unbelievable. I'm heading to tromso next week and hoping to see them there fingers crossed. How did you do the time lapse video did u use your dslr for this ? im bringing my 50d and tripod and hoping to get some gud shots.

Thanks:)

Cheers man ... Ah cool , youll definitely see them im sure!
Ye the timelapse is photos from my Nikon D7000 , ISO between 1600-3200 15seconds F3.6 ...

i had a wired shutter release for this with a " hold down" function on it.
So had it on manual setting the focus first to infinity and manually keeping it at that. Then Set the 15 seconds exposure .. then set the camera to Continuous shooting . ANd start ... the camera should take a shot then every 15 seconds.. for 15 seconds...
Battery power is the thing with this as to do a timelapse like mine youll need as many photos as possible .. i had mine going for about 3 hrs . ( in -15 to -20 o C ! :rolleyes: :cool: )

Best to do some practice trials with it.
I was lucky i had the lads to help me as i only had the camera 2 weeks so was my first proper timelapse! ha :rolleyes:

Any more questions feel free to ask!

GOod luck!

scholes

Thanks Ian sounds great, did you have many batteries? were u shooting in raw? and how much memory did u use? also did you have to wrap the camera in anything ?

Mountainsandh

Thanks for keeping us updated Ian and the vids and pics are brilliant. That flare is something else ! :eek:

KP9 imagine, we might even be able to see it from down in the South East if that happened ?

Iancar29

scholes wrote: »

Thanks Ian sounds great, did you have many batteries? were u shooting in raw? and how much memory did u use? also did you have to wrap the camera in anything ?

I only had 2 batteries... luckily because my camera and batteries wer both brand new they werent effected by the cold . only needed used 3 full charged battteries over 4 nights.
Memory wise.. i was shooting in Raw apart from the main section of my Time-lapse as it takes ALOT longer to process raw files into a timelapse .
Used about 16 gbs in total id say.

None of us wrapped the camera in anything while shooting as it was bound to get cold for being out in the those temps for so long. What we DID do was , bring a few big Glad bags wit us and put the camera into them BEFORE we went back inside, then .. when the camera did warm back up , the condensation forms on the outside of the bag. Filters wer also a no no as they produced glare in the photos and fogged up so quick .

2 pairs of gloves is a must !... one tight pair to use to function the camera and what not and then a warm ,windproof pair over them. NOt having these was the main reason why one of the lad's came back with minor frost-bite.

If u can , go online and purchase some silica gel pouches ( chemical warmers ) , the work great putting into ur gloves or snow boots.... i hope u have snow boots! ha... an THICK WOOL SOCKS... NO cotton socks! , sweat will freeze on them .

A balaclava for ur face or a good neck warmer is a must too! ..

If ur gonna be like me staying out for hours , try not to keep still ... moving around even just a little will keep u a hell of a lot warmer than doing nothing .