POLAR LIGHTS

[Click]

Great shots! Well done, Aussie shooter.

 

[SteveC]

A very short lived Aurora popped up a couple of nights ago. Never really got going unfortunately but still. And what I like about this time of year is that the Milky way is really starting to creep into that southerly position with the Southern Cross mixed in with it. View attachment 200107 View attachment 200108

I enjoy trying to identify the stars I'm seeing even though I've seen the deep southern sky maybe twice in my life. At the very top, super bright, Alpha Centauri, below that Beta, and then the southern cross (with the "head" pointing down and to the right, and that corner an orange star. (At least I hope so!)

 

[Aussie shooter]

I enjoy trying to identify the stars I'm seeing even though I've seen the deep southern sky maybe twice in my life. At the very top, super bright, Alpha Centauri, below that Beta, and then the southern cross (with the "head" pointing down and to the right, and that corner an orange star. (At least I hope so!)

Definitely the southern cross (upside down so to speak). Not sure about the names of the other two. I have always just known them as the pointers as they are used in conjunction with the cross to find south.

 

[SteveC]

Definitely the southern cross (upside down so to speak). Not sure about the names of the other two. I have always just known them as the pointers as they are used in conjunction with the cross to find south.

Yeah, that would be Alpha and Beta Centauri. They're actually quite prominent, especially Alpha Centauri.

Alpha Centauri is actually a double star (won't be visible without a telescope), one of the two (A) is 50% brighter than our sun, the other (B) half as bright, so the pair put out twice as much power as the sun. The pair is the nearest visible (to the naked eye) star to the Sun. (There is another star, a red dwarf that can only be seen with a telescope, called Proxima Centauri, it actually orbits Alpha Centauri A and B making it in fact a triple star. It's actually noticeably distant from the other two as seen from Earth, and it happens to be nearer to us than A and B are, so it holds the crown for nearest star to the sun, period.

Beta Centauri is also a triple star. They are a lot further away (~90 times as far) and intrinsically brighter by far than Alpha Centauri. (All three are spectral class B with a color temperature of over 20,000K.) Between the three of them, they belt out 66,000 times as much power as our sun, mostly in the ultraviolet.

 

[Aussie shooter]

We had anorher display of Aurora the other night. An M-class fare a few days prior sent a coronal mass ejection straight towards earth. The weather was hit and miss with a lot of cloud forecast but we managed to get a bit of clear skies right at the peak time of activity. Still. When it is 2.30am and you are heading out to shoot for a client the next morning you do wonder how sensible it is to be doing what you are doing

 

[Click]

Beautiful shot.

 

[Aussie shooter]

Beautiful shot.

Cheers Click

 

[HenryL]

We had anorher display of Aurora the other night. An M-class fare a few days prior sent a coronal mass ejection straight towards earth. The weather was hit and miss with a lot of cloud forecast but we managed to get a bit of clear skies right at the peak time of activity. Still. When it is 2.30am and you are heading out to shoot for a client the next morning you do wonder how sensible it is to be doing what you are doing View attachment 200755

I'm glad you went out and did it anyway, it looks great. Hope the shoot the following day went just as well!

 

[Aussie shooter]

I'm glad you went out and did it anyway, it looks great. Hope the shoot the following day went just as well!

Wasn't too bad. Only a few hours so I pulled through