Off-Topic

[VaultBoy]

Where do you find out about magnetic storms? If I knew when to look I might even see it here one day.

 

[MagicJ]

Wow - did anyone see the Aurora tonight?

I need to go to work tomorrow so wasn't planning on going out tonight but I couldn't resist when I saw the forecast - and I wasn't disappointed.

These are a couple from tonight, including a panorama stitched together from 10 images.

 

[MagicJ]

Where do you find out about magnetic storms? If I knew when to look I might even see it here one day.

Check out this site - http://www.aurora-service.net/aurora-forecast/

 

[Agent M]

Wow - did anyone see the Aurora tonight?

Nope, lol! Did you see it with the naked eye? Photos are awesome!

 

[MagicJ]

Did you see it with the naked eye? Photos are awesome!

You could see it with the naked eye, but what you mean by 'see' could be a lot different to reality. Because we are so far from the actual aurora, the colour is so dim that our eye's are not really able to pick it up - unless it is a major geomagnetic storm. You can see movement, but more in a black/white sense rather than colour.

However, modern camera's are much more sensitive to colour, and low light levels, which is why we can get great photo's.

This explains it pretty well

The simplistic answer is because human eyes can’t see the relatively “faint” colors of the aurora at night. Our eyes have cones and rods – the cones work during the day and the rods work at night.

"Humans use two different kinds of cells in their eyes to sense light. Cone cells, concentrated in the fovea in the central area of vision, are high resolution and detect color in bright light. These are the main cells we use for vision in the daytime. Rod cells, concentrated in the periphery around the outside of the fovea, can detect much fainter light at night, but only see in black and white and shades of gray. [Aurora] only appear to us in shades of gray because the light is too faint to be sensed by our color-detecting cone cells.” – Jerry Lodriguss

Thus the human eye views the Aurora Australis generally in “black & white.” DSLR Camera sensors don’t have this limitation. Couple that fact in with long exposure times and high ISO Settings of modern cameras means the camera sensor has a much more dynamic range of vision in the dark than we do. The same thing is true regarding the Milky Way and night photography in general.

This video will show you what I mean

 

[MagicJ]

Reading through some comments on a local Facebook page, it seems that the display last Wednesday/Thursday was the best that many had seen ... ever.

But it also seems that the reds, purples etc were evident later in the night - like, around 3.00am !!. I only hung around till about 10.00pm!!. This was so good, that a number of people stayed out from 8.30pm on Wednesday until sun rise on Thursday - that's about 10 hours!!

This is a sample of some pictures from the local Facebook page (these are not my photo's - most have a watermark on the photo's) -

 

[MagicJ]

It won't be long before this one needs to leave the pouch :)

 

[MagicJ]

@AgentM = I though you might like that one :)

 

[Agent M]

I love it, just want to go up and give it a big hug. Really need to check out Tassie one of these days.

 

[MagicJ]

I love it, just want to go up and give it a big hug. Really need to check out Tassie one of these days.

I don't know about Tassie - this was in my back yard :)