Aurora - Thurso 12th April

[astroman]

There hasn't been much solar activity (or cloud free skies!) recently, but last night we were treated to some nice aurora nonetheless. Below are a couple of pics taken before midnight at Thurso harbour.






The view was well worth braving the bitterly cold NE wind for.

By the looks of other reports the aurora got brighter a little after midnight, but alas I was tucked up in bed by then

Remember if you have any good aurora pics you'd like to contribute for a display at an aurora event in Caithness Horizons in May get in touch with me (see http://forum.caithness.org/showthrea...l-public-event for more info).

[Mystical Potato Head]

The first one has turned out superb,lovely reds.
I had a look out in the garden about 1ish and there were quite a few rays to the North East
but 2 hours in that wind was enough.

[Timber-TEC]

Nice shots Gordon especially first one.
I've got time lapse with aurora close ups.
http://youtu.be/-F9baiNGXcA

[kas]

I missed this, saw the forecast but felt tired so didnt bother. What a mistake.
Beautiful photo.

[astroman]

Thanks all - I was very pleased with the colours in the first one and it was nice to get Venus in the second even if the lights from Scrabster are a bit overexposed.

Nice timelapse Maciek - a little more practice, more aurora and some clear skies and your future posts might look something like this http://vimeo.com/40555466

[Timber-TEC]

Well, I have made an investments to make better time lapses of the night sky by buying better camera and quick wide angle lens (should have them next week) as I was geting more and more frustrated with the final results. Probably reaching level from the movie will get me few years (if ever ), but at least I will be not force to produce terrible stitched pictures like this one below from 12 April

[astroman]

The results you're getting are pretty good Maciek. What camera you getting?

[Timber-TEC]

Now, I am using Canon 1000D with kit lens 18-55mm.
This latest aurora time laps was taken with fast 50mm 1.8f prime lens stoped at f 2.8 to cut exposure time and make time lapse smoother, but because this lens has narrow field of view than I have added cheap pseudo fisheye lens which introduced a lot of distortions.

I have managed to process my panorama again, now looks better I think as these stitches are almost invisible.

[astroman]

Yeah, that's much better - can't see the joins now. Excellent result.