Northern lights photos 2006

20.8.2006

At a time of a solar minimum, all signs of auroras are very welcome as pleasent surprises. We saw a green sparkling aurora belt from our backyard already at 10.30 pm. By the time we'd sent an alarm to other local observers though, all activity was gone.

Later the same night we decided to go aurora-fishing at the nearby lake. Lake Särkijärvi (Tampere, Finland) had become a regular observation site for the local aurora chasers. We found our friend Antti Mäkelä already standing at the shore with some photographic equipment.

The music from an ongoing party at the other side of the lake made us consider the possibility of loaning the boat to get there.

Even if this wasn't the strongest storm ever, it finally gave us a chance to try our new photo equipment. The Canon EOS 5D camera and the EF24mm f1.4L lens had waited over half a year to store their first aurora lights.

This picture shows some very rapidly moving weak aurora rays. This is mainly a photographic test of extreme settings: 2s, ISO 3200, f/1.4.

Some kind of a substorm came later at night. Also the Moon had risen over the horizon.

15.12.2006

The predicted aurora activity seemed to be increasing and I decided to leave the christmas party at the local observatory and head for the nearby lake shore with a view towards north.

This was a nice small aurora show for a change, nothing surprising. I suppose Scandinavia missed the best parts (again).

The nearby shore hit the public record of aurora watchers: there were more than 5 people watching the show. Usually I'm the only one. Kari Kuure is in the front row with his photographic equipment.

When the activity seemed to be decreasing, we headed back to the observatory for warm drinks. A rather weak aurora band was still cruising at the northern horizon.

With nothing else to do, I made a short animation of it. (Thans to Henrik for the video-work.)