For those who do not know, auroras are caused by solar activity. This is shortly visualized in the video. Our suns activity varies in 11 year cycles, and we are closing solar maximum (solar max) for our current solar cycle somewhere between 2012-2013, and solar activity has clearly been picking up. The beginning of 2011 was lots of clouds but weather improved late 2011 and out 2012. This video contains recordings from some of the most spectacular auroral displays I have ever witnessed, and I have seen a few.

For this video Ole C. Salomonsen did shoot approx 150.000 exposures from sept.2011 – april.2012 using Canon DSLR’s and various wide angle lenses. To achieve pannings Ole has used the fantastic Stage Zero + MX2 controller time-lapse gear from Dynamic Perception.

The video is a merge of two parts; the first part contains some more wild and aggressive auroras, as well as a few milky way sequences, hence either auroras are moving fast because they are, or they are fast due to motion of the milky way / stars. Still, some of the strait up shots are very close to real-time speed, although auroras mostly are slower, she can also be FAST! The second part has some more slow and majestic auroras, where I have focused more on composition and foreground. The music should give you a clear indication of where you are :)

via:equisdx

Last week Christian Mülhauser was again in Norway for shooting northern lights. This time he was very lucky, there was a lot of activity on the sky especially on the 24 January. The scenes are from Ravnastua, Skoganvarre and Lakselv. The first two days he had a lot of trouble with frozen Cameras. It was -25°C (-13°F) and after 1-2 hours of shooting the lens was frozen.

Equipment he used: a Canon 5D MarkII with ML, a 7D and a 550D with ML. All the scenes were shoot with this 3 lenses: Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 L on 5D, Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 on 7D and my Samyang 8mm/f3.5 on 550D.

The sound from the vimeo music store:
Elemental by Pulse Faction
Path of Stars by Jonathan Geer

Being able to photograph it all night Alex Cherney came up with a nice video. The brighter Aurora happened on January 22nd and the smaller one, featured in the middle section, was from January 16th, followed by a rather bright Moonrise.

Via: equisdx

Aurora australis, the southern polar lights
Aurora borealis, the northern polar lights

The light show comes to us courtesy of our Sun. Electrically charged particles produced on the Sun are ejected in all directions and a great amount of them head toward Earth. As these particles (called solar wind) encounter the Earth’s outer regions, the magnetic field of the Earth begins to interact with the particles.

What results is a change in energy and direction of the particles: they head along magnetic field lines toward the poles of Earth. Just like a bar magnet has its field lines returning at the opposite ends so the Earth’s magnetic lines come together around the poles. This is why the aurora borealis is brightest and most easily seen in the northern regions of our planet.

Most auroras are green and red emissions from atomic oxygen. Molecular nitrogen and nitrogen ions produce some low level red (pink) and very high blue/violet auroras. The light blue and green colors are produced by ionic nitrogen and the neutral helium gives off the purple colour whereas neon is responsible for the rare orange flares with the rippled edges. Different gasses interacting with the upper atmosphere will produce different colors, caused by the different compounds of oxygen and nitrogen. The level of solar wind activity from the Sun can also influence the color and intensity of the auroras.

The light show comes to us courtesy of our Sun.  Electrically charged particles produced on the Sun are ejected in all directions and a great amount of them head toward Earth.  As these particles (called solar wind) encounter the Earth’s outer regions, the magnetic field of the Earth begins to interact with the particles.

What results is a change in energy and direction of the particles: they head along magnetic field lines toward the poles of Earth.  Just like a bar magnet has its field lines returning at the opposite ends so the Earth’s magnetic lines come together around the poles.  This is why the aurora borealis is brightest and most easily seen in the northern regions of our planet.

Most auroras are green and red emissions from atomic oxygen. Molecular nitrogen and nitrogen ions produce some low level red (pink) and very high blue/violet auroras. The light blue and green colors are produced by ionic nitrogen and the neutral helium gives off the purple colour whereas neon is responsible for the rare orange flares with the rippled edges. Different gasses interacting with the upper atmosphere will produce different colors, caused by the different compounds of oxygen and nitrogen. The level of solar wind activity from the Sun can also influence the color and intensity of the auroras.