Northern Lights above Trondheim

There was a brief spell of Northern Lights here in Trondheim on Tuesday 20. November. K-5 and DA12-24mm.

1.


Nordlys_34 by bjolester, on Flickr

2.


Nordlys_35 by bjolester, on Flickr

3.


Nordlys_36 by bjolester, on Flickr

4.


Nordlys_37 by bjolester, on Flickr

5.


Nordlys_38 by bjolester, on Flickr

Bjørn

The k5 seems to be working well for you

Always enjoy seeing your adventures with northen light images.

All interesting, but last one is my favourite - composition of the pilings works well with the 'flare' of light

The 4th ones my favourite out of a set that's so good
it's hard to pick the bestest

Thank you for your encouraging comments - most appreciated!

Bjørn

amazing pictures. I like no 5, i cant wait to see the northern light here...

cheers

Wonderful. Do you mind me asking what ASA, shutter speed and aperture you were using? Your shutter speed was obviously long enough to capture the lights, but not so long as to blur the stars. A matter of fine judgement...

Paul

Thank you iqbal and Paul!

All the images were taken at 12mm with ISO 1600 and f4.

Shutter speeds:
1. 20 sec
2. 20 sec
3. 13 sec
4. 13 sec
5. 15 sec

Based on my humble calculations, star trails will appear with longer exposures than 33,33 seconds at 12mm
(600:12:1,5 crop factor). So with my set-up (at 12mm) I never use longer exposures than 30 seconds for this kind of night photography.

Regards
Bjørn

Excellent, many thanks for the info. I think the star trails critical shutter speed may actually vary depending on whether you're pointing your camera towards the equator or a pole, but I'm not good enough at maths to work out how..
This info is really useful because I'm off to North of Sweden in Feb to try to photograph some aurora myself. 2013 is apparently a solar maximum so fingers crossed. With my luck I've probably booked the 1 quiet week out of the whole year

Paul

Your assumptions about star trails seem logical, there is really a lot to learn about astrophotography. One day I will find some books on this subject and do some serious studying

I hope your travel to Sweden will be successful!

Best regards
Bjørn

Hi I am taking a trip to Norway in January 2013 hoping to see the Northen Lights. I have a Pentax K5 how long do the batterys last in the cold.
Derek

If they are fully charged before you go out they last a surprisingly long time - hours if fact. But to be on the safe side always take one or two spares with you, and keep them close to your body to keep them warm. You will find that if a battery says it is low once it has warmed up again it will miraculously have recharged quite a bit too.

I took three batteries with me to Norway in winter, and only once was one affected by the cold, and that was because it wasn't fully charged before I went out with it that day.
I was out on deck taking photos for hours in subzero temps with no problems. Same with the dog sledding, when it was -18 - the battery held out just fine.

forgot to say what a fine set again Bjørn.
I see the lights will be good again tonight. In fact Iqbal should get outside too and see if he can see them tonight!

Thank you Gwyn!

Regards
Bjørn

I actually have signed up for the aurora watch UK. They will sent me email notification if there's a chance to see aurora, but the last notification I get was at 4 in the morning where I was still aslep

I look at http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/ - you can choose the map view and certainly when I was in Norway I found it very accurate. It is the most used predictor as they have access to Nasa and NOAA data as well as their own.

For today have a look at http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/Europe/2012/11/27

A pity Aurora Watch can't text you. That might wake you up .