Chasing light tornadoes in Northern Alberta - 3/27/07 early morning

[dewey]

This morning was very exciting! Photographing the Northern Lights when they are active is much like storm chasing. Traveling down long open stretches of country road, ready to pull over and setup for a shot quickly when the aurora shows up. It was quite amazing that it can go from dull to peak brightness and back to dull in seconds... I missed several shots trying to find nice scenery to get in front of me.

These shots were near Vimy Alberta which is about an hour North of Edmonton. All shots were with a D200 and a 17-55 2.8 Nikon lens. The ISO was 100 and the exposures were at f/2.8 between 30 seconds and 1 minute each.

The earth weather isn't good tonight and auroral activity is forecast to drop off. I'll make a run North again if things line up again in the next couple weeks, but I'm very pleased with my Northern Lights mission and I call it completed.

You can see my motivation for calling them light tornadoes in shots 1 & 2! In #5 high clouds were moving in from the North.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

 

[elrick]

beautiful! :thumbup: and it does look like tornado indeed

 

[Mainiac]

Whoa. You should be pleased with these photos, they are amazing! :thumbup: I really like #1 and how there is a bit a of red and yellow in the lights.

 

[jtice]

That is REALLY cool, I envy you for the chase to even SEE that in person !
Seems you captured it quite well.

~John

 

[Antarctican]

Another stunning series depicting the northern lights! These are truly awesome, and I'm so glad you shared them on this forum.

 

[Big Mike]

Excellent series. I'm glad you found what you were looking for and you did a great job capturing it.

 

[LaFoto]

More such wonderful, wonderful pics!!!
My daughter will also squeal with delight when she gets to see these. (She's still at the pool, doing her swimming - twice a day now that she's off school for a fortnight).

 

[250Gimp]

WOW!! Those are great pics!!

I grew up in Northen Ontario and used to see these all the time, but I wasn't into photography then. Now I live much more south and haven't seen them in years.

 

[digital flower]

#5 :thumbup: :thumbup:

 

[JTHphoto]

excuse me while i pick my jaw up off of the floor...

these are even better than your other set on here... i'd have #1 or #2 hanging on a wall for sure... thanks for sharing these... :thumbup:

 

[Tantalus]

1 and 2 look cool, very sci-fi like some movie effects.

 

[lostprophet]

:hail:

 

[jack lumber]

Brilliant Dewey!!! I would hang those.

 

[flyingseale]

These are lovely shots. I'm very envious that you are able to drive to see these sights.
You say they are 30-60 second exposures...does this mean the aurora is enhanced in the photos compared to 'reality'?

 

[dewey]

Thanks for everyones kind words!

If I could get these clouds to clear out I'd try again in the next day or so. :x

Flyingseale that's the exposure needed to capture the auroras and the stars bright enough... I wouldn't say it enhanced them. In reality they were obvioulsy more dynamic than a photo can show - I should have brought a video camera!

Everyone keep an eye out tonight and tomorrow (if you're not clouded in) is supposed to be good for auroras! :thumbup: