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 Alamy, 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.
Some of my photographs
are also for purchase on
Collections.
For Aurora watchers please note that even to 2010 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 April and
again in August 2010 -
so fingers crossed. 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
two useful sites: Spaceweather.com
and AuroraWatch UK
For those interested in photographing Aurora, I used a DSLR Fuji S3 which
is 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.
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.