Northern Lights from a moving platform, how to?

Eyon

Eyon

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Ian
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Hi,

I'm a casual photographer, I've dabbled in star trails and the like but nothing serious, normally just snap away happily at things I see rather than do anything planned. However, this Sunday I've been given an opportunity to view the Northern Lights from an aircraft, the big bonus is that I'm the pilot and I've got the best seats in the house! I'm super excited about this as it's a rare flight to be sent on (there are quite a few of these flights a year but the crew bid heavily for them, I got lucky this time!) and I really want some photos remember it with.

My setup will be a Nikon D3200, standard kit 18-55mm lens and a remote shutter. I've also got a circular polarising filter I use in the day to reduce window reflections, I'm not sure if I'll need this as the reflections shouldn't be an issue at night (we dim all the internal lights, turn the external ones off). I'll have the camera on a Joby Gorillapod too, mounted to somewhere secure and safe in the cockpit.

I guess that the NL's aren't guaranteed so if we don't see them I'd like to get some stars photographed.

Any idea what's the best way to photograph? Aperture as wide as it'll go, but what ISO and shutter speed? Do you recommend long exposures or composite images of shorter exposures? Naturally the aeroplane may be a little bumpy at times, but at midnight at 40,000ft it should be quite good, but not ground good. I cannot expose for more than 5 minutes as I'll have to turn the aircraft (we fly a race track shape holding pattern).

Appreciate any help I can get from the pro's out there!

Thanks!
 
Not sure it's possible, even with a gimbal. You need the camera absolutely still.
You may be able to get some video
 
A faster lens would be useful. If you got lucky with a bright aurora on the night, you would probably be able to get away with a high ISO and fairly short shutterspeeds then. Assuming you're not flying dangerously low to the ground, and are using a widish lens, then you won't need a shutterspeed all that quick to avoid blurring the landscape.
 
There will be too much vibration by my reckoning. I've not tried it, but I spent years photographing from the air (not at night). However, I'd say nothing ventured.....

Try one lap using long exposure, then on the next lap get the pnf to take control and I'd take a series of hand held shots on 1/50th and see if you can stack something together.

Best of luck, and I look forward to seeing the results.
 
You could try machine gunning it and stacking the resulting files. Maybe more use for stars than the aurora. You may have to wind the ISO up higher than you'd usually be happy with on the D3200.

Lots of examples out there of what people have shot from passenger seats on planes. I don't know how practical some would be when you're in the cockpit, and have more important things to be concentrating on.

Here's one (rather lengthy video) that includes the bloke's post workflow for stacking the images as well.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3V_pIaeaSA
 
Thanks for the replies all. New lens isn't a real option right now, I had considered hiring a ~16mm wide angle for the night but I've left it a bit late. We'll be flying probably up at our ceiling at around 41,000ft routing up around the space between the Shetland and Faroe Islands, so it'll be dark with no landscape in the immediate vicinity to give the sense of moving. Depending on where the moon is and how bright it is (forecast to be 61%) I could get a nice horizon with the milky way.

Thanks for the video link too. I'll take a look. Northern lights aren't guaranteed but if I get the milky way I'll be more than happy. As for more important things to concentrate on... true, very true, but if I get the camera set up in a place I can just fire off shots with the remote shutter as I go on i'll be fine, my colleague is due to be the pilot flying and I'll be on the radios and doing the other things so I'll have spare moments. Fortunately too, as this flight is purely for star gazers, subject to ATC we turn off all the external lights on the aircraft, plus at night the flight deck is quite a dark place too so the usual problems of aircraft window photography shouldn't present themselves.

No idea how it'll pan out, we'll see.

I'll post some photos up here when I'm done early next week, I'm no pro so don't expect the standards normally blessing these forums, but I'll give it my best.
 
Christiaan Van Heijst is a superb photographer (to my untrained eye), skill I could only dream of. If I get a single photograph which is even remotely similar I'd be very happy!
 
I feel really envious of you. Make sure the window is clean... I managed this one hand held at the door window of the plane (as I was seated on the wrong side).

f/2.8 1/3s 11mm ISO6400 on a crop sensor body
https://goo.gl/photos/bz41uw7Fe6kRJVkZ6

Good luck and please post your shots afterwards.
 
Flight happened last night, had wonderful clear skies but the Aurora wasn't the strongest. My camera really struggled with picking up the finer detail, where as my colleague in the flight deck had a camera which could shoot at a much higher ISO and managed to pick up some beautiful greens and reds. I ended up using 4 sec exposures, f3.5 and an ISO of 12,800, it seemed to give the best results. Any longer exposures gave too much movement, any shorter and it was too dim.

Sadly too there are so many lights in the cockpit that my eyes never really adapted to the dark and seeing things with my naked eye wasn't as spectacular as I'd have hoped. The folk in the cabin would have got considerably better views as all the lights were off inside and out, their eyes would have adapted and easily would have seen the milky way.

I'm going to dive into LR and see what I can make of them, I'll post my results here later.
 
Oh well, at least you tried. Looking forward to seeing the results.

Perhaps next time, you will have to sit down the back with all the commoners :)

Shame it wasn't so strong, but that's the thing with nature, you just can't predict it.
 
gremlin16 said:
Oh well, at least you tried. Looking forward to seeing the results.

Perhaps next time, you will have to sit down the back with all the commoners :)

Shame it wasn't so strong, but that's the thing with nature, you just can't predict it.
Click to expand...

Exactly, nature is hardly predictable and within the limits of where we could operate (62 deg N) there is only so much we could see. The altitude (36,000ft last night) gives us approximately 4 degrees "more" north so our vision was effectively 66N, which is around northern Iceland. Visibility was easily 100 miles (Edinburgh and Glasgow were visible from the Moray Firth) or more and there is next to no light pollution up there, so I had everything going for me apart from a low end DSLR, a slow lens, a wobbly tripod and a moving platform moving at speeds up to 700mph (it was quite windy last night) taking through thick laminated glass in a room full of lights. Add to this I'm a total amateur at photography and editing and I was never going to get spectacular results.

If interested here's the details of our flight https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/g-lcyx#cca86be

To give a rough idea of the movement, here is an unedited very grainy 30 second exposure in a turn.

25turte.jpg


Rather embarrassingly, here is the only image I've managed to get off the camera to look even remotely correct. This was a composition using the above linked videos technique, sadly this makes the Aurora a blur rather than a crisp line and the 2 shooting stars have also vanished.

b85s8y.jpg


Here's what a pro managed on the same flight: https://BANNED/Avertedvision/status/843750559488364544

With that all said thanks to this threads help I've had a lot of fun and learnt a lot so I'm eager to carry on my photography adventures. I'll keep editing see if I can make something better. If not, I'll hopefully be rostered for more flights in the Autumn and Winter of 17/18 and by then, who knows, Nikon D5 and a faster lens? :LOL:

Ian
 
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