The Aurora Borealis phenomenon of solar winds hitting the earth's atmosphere is something which had eluded me until this year. I've been in the wrong place at the wrong time with weather, time and location never coming together to capture it. I know I have the skills to capture it but I've never been lucky enough until this year.
On Facebook yesterday there was a little buzz of posts about the increased Aurora activity and my Aurorawatch UK app was pinging like crazy with notifications. A look at the weather forecast informed me that I was better to go east of my location where there would be a break in the clouds and rain just long enough to grab some images.
I've been to North Leverton windmill many times before but wasn't sure I'd be able to see the Aurora from this location. I thought it was worth a punt and made my way at dusk. I met up with Richard, the miller who kindly made a brew while we waited for the skies to clear.
This time the weather forecast was pretty much spot on and as predicted the skies turned spectacular!
Cooling Towers included
This may not be the most award winning of images with not much of a foreground to speak of so I included the cooling towers from the local power station for a sense of scale.
I was surprised to find that I could shoot as low as ISO 640 and still see the Aurora. Normally, in my part of the world so far south, it's sometimes necessary to crank up the ISO to see this. I could have gone lower.
AuroraWatch UK
It's safe to say I'll be watching out for notifications from this app. A quick screenshot from yesterday got me excited! The nT disturbance level got as high as 600 last night and I'm hoping for a repeat performance tonight, finger's crossed.
North Leverton Windmill
Once I'd finished shooting the sky, I moved locations to shoot the mill itself. Here I manually focussed on the stars and shot at f1.8, wide open on my Sony 14mm G Master lens. I'm really impressed with this lens!!
A failed star trail shot
As the Aurora began to fade, the skies were still clear. I aligned Polaris (the North Star) with the fan tail of the windmill and set a sequence of 30 second exposures going to create a star trail. Unfortunately as is always the way for me, the clouds began to roll in. I abandoned the sequence resolving to come back and try again. Watch this space.
Waiting for Aurora
As I arrived at the windmill, the clouds were thick but the forecast was for clear. I decided to wait for the sky to clear and filled my time with a cheeky little selfie in the lane alongside the mill.
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex, landscape and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; the social side of photography is always good!
Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/