Is this the aurora borealis?
August 17, 2015 7:00 PM Subscribe
Do these photos taken on Saturday near Barry's Bay, Ontario show the northern lights?
I checked with a compass and they were definitely in the northern part of the sky. To the naked eye, it just looked like vague brightness. Aside from rotation and cropping, these photos are straight from the camera, processed from RAW in Lightroom.
On Saturday night I was far from city lights, and untroubled by the moon. We didn’t see a lot of meteors, but the sky was so full of stars that it made identifying familiar constellations a challenge. Across the sky, the band of the Milky Way was clearly visible, wheeling above us as the night went on.
Experimenting with some long exposures with my Fuji X100S (and a stepladder and dishcloth as an improvised tripod) I was surprised to see that the vague light in the northern sky came out as brilliant colour when photographed at 1600 ISO with a 30″ exposure.
I tried making some animated GIFs, but that image format is awful for photos like these.
Can anyone suggest a simple way to create an animation from these that will look better?
Thanks for the advice!
On Saturday night I was far from city lights, and untroubled by the moon. We didn’t see a lot of meteors, but the sky was so full of stars that it made identifying familiar constellations a challenge. Across the sky, the band of the Milky Way was clearly visible, wheeling above us as the night went on.
Experimenting with some long exposures with my Fuji X100S (and a stepladder and dishcloth as an improvised tripod) I was surprised to see that the vague light in the northern sky came out as brilliant colour when photographed at 1600 ISO with a 30″ exposure.
I tried making some animated GIFs, but that image format is awful for photos like these.
Can anyone suggest a simple way to create an animation from these that will look better?
Thanks for the advice!
I'm pretty sure it is the aurora borealis. I've seen reports from South Dakota and northward on August 15-17.
posted by lukemeister at 7:09 PM on August 17, 2015
posted by lukemeister at 7:09 PM on August 17, 2015
Response by poster: This was around 2am in cottage country, with no large settlements around and no visible moon. Even then, and with eyes acclimated after several hours in the dark, I was only able to see this light as a horizontal band within a vaguely brighter area.
Any suggestions for making animations of moderately high resolution and better colour than GIF allows?
posted by sindark at 7:09 PM on August 17, 2015
Any suggestions for making animations of moderately high resolution and better colour than GIF allows?
posted by sindark at 7:09 PM on August 17, 2015
Looks like them to me! The one with the island and the pink/yellow sky is particularly beautiful.
posted by Elly Vortex at 7:35 PM on August 17, 2015
posted by Elly Vortex at 7:35 PM on August 17, 2015
Those are gorgeous. Yay for you!
posted by kitten magic at 7:40 PM on August 17, 2015
posted by kitten magic at 7:40 PM on August 17, 2015
Response by poster: There are many more photos toward the bottom of this album.
posted by sindark at 7:49 PM on August 17, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by sindark at 7:49 PM on August 17, 2015 [4 favorites]
Best answer: Yep indeed. You find it hard to see the color, because scoptic vision, which lets us see in low light, is monochromatic, and the Aurora is rarely bright enough to activate mesopic vision, which lets us start to see colors.
But digital camera sensors? They're much better at capturing photons that we are, esp. photons from monochromatic sources like the Aurora. The green comes from emissions from molecular nitrogen, the red from atomic oxygen, yellow from a mix of the two, and blue appears from ionized molecular nitrogen. But the 557nm emission from molecular nitrogen really stands out because it's right in the center of our eye's sensitivity range, and digital cameras are thus tuned to also be sensitive to that light.
So, when we can barely see color, or can't at all, a digital camera can easily catch those colors -- and that tells you that you're seeing the aurora faster than anything else.
And looking at the photos, it looks like you had a pretty solid display -- and a nice shot of the Pleiades too!
posted by eriko at 8:27 PM on August 17, 2015 [7 favorites]
But digital camera sensors? They're much better at capturing photons that we are, esp. photons from monochromatic sources like the Aurora. The green comes from emissions from molecular nitrogen, the red from atomic oxygen, yellow from a mix of the two, and blue appears from ionized molecular nitrogen. But the 557nm emission from molecular nitrogen really stands out because it's right in the center of our eye's sensitivity range, and digital cameras are thus tuned to also be sensitive to that light.
So, when we can barely see color, or can't at all, a digital camera can easily catch those colors -- and that tells you that you're seeing the aurora faster than anything else.
And looking at the photos, it looks like you had a pretty solid display -- and a nice shot of the Pleiades too!
posted by eriko at 8:27 PM on August 17, 2015 [7 favorites]
On spaceweather.com, you can put in the date (on the right hand side of the page) and look at the archived maps/forecasts for auroral activity, etc. (on the left side). That would give another confirmation.
posted by janell at 8:38 AM on August 18, 2015
posted by janell at 8:38 AM on August 18, 2015
BTW, you might see aurora tonight and tomorrow night.
posted by lukemeister at 1:59 PM on August 18, 2015
posted by lukemeister at 1:59 PM on August 18, 2015
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Whenn I saw them earlier this summer, All i could see with the naked eye was some flashing and/or moving brightness. The Northern sky was somewhat brigher, as in light pollution, than it normally was. They weren't bright enough for color. If I wasn't familliar with the local night sky, I'm sure I wouldn't have even noticed them.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 7:07 PM on August 17, 2015