Auroras
Taken by Michael P Zawadzki on November 6, 2018 @
Norway/Finland border on E8
Click photo for larger image
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Camera Used: NIKON CORPORATION NIKON D850
Exposure Time: 5/1
Aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 3200
Date Taken: 2018:11:06 04:06:08
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Details:
The weather forecast for Tromsø was so grim tonight (100% rain and even pouring/windy in downtown) that even some of the most veteran aurora chasers on our trip didn't think we had a chance, but we found the opening in the sky thanks to the expert analysis of the weather forecasts by Terence Murtagh and Bill Gutsch, along with some local guidance. It took driving all the way to Finland, almost 3 hours, but it was so worth it.
I've seen many aurora displays in my trips to Tromsø, but there is something extra rewarding and special when the chase isn't as simple as just driving out of town, and setting up our tripods. We experienced a very lucky opening in the sky on an otherwise dreadful night. There were some longer periods of 10-20 minutes of the well-known striated "river" dull aurora running along the sky from horizon to horizon, some of it being obscured by cloud cover, which was still relatively dense. As I have seen over the years, this is often a precursor to stronger pulses and activity. We were then treated to several bursts, curtains, and even a corona, which I did not manage to capture this time. There were not as many purples/pinks as two days ago. This kind of activity lasted for about 10 minutes. We left around 12:30 AM. The aurora showed some signs of strengthening activity again after the initial burst, but never fully did come back.
I set up my camera in a few different spots to run automatically on an intervalometer setting, and I may make a couple animations, but it was mostly so I could help the other chasers on this trip with their cameras. So I hope they achieved even better images than I did!
Camera Settings
Nikon D850
Samyang 14mm
ISO 3200-6400
f/2.8
5-8s exposures
Photographer's website:
http://www.mikezawadzki.com
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