Possible aurora tonight?

jpgreenwood

jpgreenwood

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jason
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Amber/Red forecast for tonight 9:00pm.
Im on the East coast of Dundee. Ive never captured the aurora before. I have a micro 4/3 Panasonic LX100 and tripod.
My camera can go down to 17mm widest, and F1.7.
Its a big moon though.
What settings should i be using for the best results?
Many thanks.
 
I've shot 13 second exposures as a timelapse before for Aurora. You are probably better off picking a composition and either shooting a full timelapse or at least shooting more frames than normal night skies to stick together in PP.

Aperture and ISO to balance the exposure.
 
jpgreenwood said:
Thanks, what’s a good starting point for ISO?
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IF you get to see the aurora, play with ISO until you get results that you like. Start high and work down - the camera can often see aurorae that the eye can't.

Good luck!
 
All depends on how much the aurora is moving. If it's really active you'll lose a lot of "highlights" with really long shutter. Though the UK pics I have seen so far don't seem have much in the lights in terms of the highlights, so you might get away with longer shutter speeds to just capture as much colours as possible.

Then just work your way up or down on the ISO. I'd normally start with 1600-3200.
On recent Sony sensor cameras (nikon, Sony, fuji) which are iso invariant, iso doesn't really matter beyond picking the correct base ISO on dual gain sensors.
 
I usually shoot 20 seconds at f2.8. if you want the stars to be sharp then shutter speed shouldn't exceed 500 divided by focal length.

I think the full moon might make it difficult tonight though
 
The sensationalist websites don't help either. The solar winds appear to have gone north for now but may come south later.
 
sirch said:
I suppose that may depend where you are in the country, I was out looking at the moon and stars earlier
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so was I but that didn't last long. Rain is about to commence any minute now. There was no aurora in sight at any part of the evening here. I merely got my hands cold, and wasted some diesel.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
so was I but that didn't last long. Rain is about to commence any minute now. There was no aurora in sight at any part of the evening here. I merely got my hands cold, and wasted some diesel.
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However, I did hear some night-time oystercatchers, an owl or two, and played with a bit of light-painting of trees - so, despite the complete lack of sky colouring, it wasn't entirely wasted!
 
I might have seen it but every time I looked up, the rain got in my eyes.
 
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Bodian said:
However, I did hear some night-time oystercatchers, an owl or two, and played with a bit of light-painting of trees - so, despite the complete lack of sky colouring, it wasn't entirely wasted!
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Lots of pheasants here announcing their location to the foxes
 
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