Aurora Night

 

You’ve processed and edited on Ps, Lr and CamRAW.  You’ve shared your art before and after.  The first quiz is done.  The Queens of Multi-tasking (job, kids, school, minor crises) — my women student colleagues– are tired.  Time to kick back, watch a mindless chick flick, have an adult beverage…. OR, you could go out and shoot more pictures!!

After a week of snow, snain, rain and clouds, the sky gods have relinquished and we had a clear night.  Last night the auroras were line dancing their way over Fairbanks!  And again just before dawn.

This is the absolutely first time I’ve tried astrophotography!  Set my 28mm f1.8 wide open to f/l.8, infinity, ISO 100 and 400, using Bulb to get a 30 second manual timed exposure on a tripod.  In my haste, I forgot two rather important things:  (1) didn’t lock the mirror up; and (2)– sigh— forgot to re-set the image quality for JPEG  and RAW.  So all of my pics are .jpeg, no chance to play with them or redact.

All taken from our back deck.  Second to last one clearly includes the Big Dipper.