35 seconds of last night’s Northern Lights display in NE Minnesota. This is NOT an enhanced time lapse. This is “real time” as I watched it at Boulder Lake a bit north of Duluth. The only post processing I performed was to remove color (i.e. reduce color saturation) and digital noise because I wanted folks to experience what I saw. Cameras tend to record the Aurora as having much more green than what we typically see in NE Minnesota. Finally, my camera is NOT an expensive device. It is a Sony A6300 (released in 2016) using 3200 ISO and an aperture of 2.0 on a wide angle lens. I try to focus on realism in my astrophotography (i.e. what I am able to see with my naked eye, as opposed to the camera which can see a broader light spectrum). My approach is not better than photographers who choose to record more light than me. Photography is art.
Video Link for this blog’s email subscribers
And of course here are a few still images from last night’s dance by Lady Aurora. My only post processing edits in a manner similar to my video was to tone down the colors (remove green) and sharpen the photographs. The almost full moon (70% of full last night) often washed out a Northern Lights display, but last night it allowed me to better photograph the landscape. There were very defined shadows from the moon (my tripod, me, etc).
I knew from personal experience, that when the arc stats to get intense, the dance will normally start soon.
Lady Aurora is dancing!
