AURORA GALLERIES
Click on the photo to enter the Gallery.
The thumbnail images in the galleries can be enlarged by one
left click on them.
These galleries contain photographs of Aurora displays taken over North
East Scotland and illustrate the wide variety of shapes, colours and forms
that this night time event periodically offers. They are part of one of the
largest collections of Scottish Aurora recorded in the United Kingdom.
My photographs of the Aurora are available
for reproduction sale on Crooktree.com
and Picfair, key in my name and
Aurora to see further examples of this beautiful night sky event.
Most of my best photography is now being placed on Crooktree.com
at the expense of this Website and by keying in my name with other themes
e.g. sunsets, Scotland, Aberdeenshire, snow, Egypt, etc. you will find over 3000
other examples of my work as of August 2010; this collection will expand over
future months.
A detailed write up about
my experiences photographing the Aurora is on Crooktree.com on the Links page.
Some of my photographs
are also for purchase on
Collections. Prints
or Canvases of several Aurora images can be obtained locally in
Banchory from Linda at Reprografix.
For Aurora watchers please note that even to 2017 the current
activity in the UK is low as we are in the so-called Solar Minimum when the
sunspot activity has been particularly low but we did have a small visible
display in March 2017. Some Aurora
displays can be caused by being in the solar wind or from random Coronal Mass
Ejections (CME) and to get some idea of when these might give us
displays over the UK I suggest watching three useful sites: Spaceweather.com
, AuroraWatch UK
and Auroraspy.co.uk.
Currently in 2017 we have had one of the most disappointing Solar Maximum's
over the past decade and are now moving into another Minimum Cycle so
expectations are low. There are regular Aurora displays in the Northern and
Southern Hemisphere's as illustrated daily on the Spaceweather Aurora Photo
Gallery but most of these are Solar Wind generated without the power levels to
push big displays as far south as Scotland. Cloud is also a problem with more
westerly Low's off the Atlantic and it stopped several sightings of this
summer's NLC.
For those interested in photographing Aurora, I used a DSLR Fuji S3
from 2003 and upgraded to a S5Pro before settling on the Nikon D700 FX
and these are all set on manual with wide open aperture at an ISO of 1600. Set the manual
setting so that the lens can be manually focussed to infinity (auto
focusing will not work as too dark) and you can also do time exposures using a
cable release and a tripod. I find exposure times of around 20 seconds with a
wide angle lens with a maximum lens aperture of f2.8 about ideal but
experiment as well with different settings. I have found the automatic
exposure tends to underexpose and that noise is a problem. On a manual film
based system, use 400asa film, push develop the film 2 stops and use the same
lens aperture/exposure times as a bench mark. No filters needed. Colours will
be saturated compared to your human eye perceptions of the actual aurora.
With many modern digital cameras and the latest DSLR cameras, ISO speeds of
in excess of 1600ISO are available so exposure times, using the above camera
parameters, can be reduced considerably. I now take displays with an
ISO3200/6400 on my Nikon D700 FX, exposing for 7-10 secs. with excellent results.
The image quality e.g. noise/grain factor was almost non-existent compared to
the scans of Fuji slide film and the Fuji DSLR at 1600ISO.
Location could be anywhere in the UK. Of course the further north the
better but they are seen regularly in many parts of England, especially the
large corona displays. Northern night sky, free of clouds, after full darkness
and away from close high hill lines and light pollution are the best viewing
scenario. In the autumn The Plough is a good reference point and in the spring
Cassiopeia. They are not temperature dependant but of course frosty nights are
usually clear so watch for batteries getting flat more quickly.
All
photographs are the Copyright of Jim Henderson Photography
and cannot be used for commercial use
without prior agreement .
I am delighted if they are used for
limited personal use.