My readers know I love the dark side of the day. You will often find me enjoying and photographing the night skies. Later this month between September 17 to 23, the Duluth area will celebrate Dark Sky Week with various events and seminars. Learn more via this link.
Tag Archives: Northern Lights
Davidson Windmill Milky Way
Last night rather than the Northern Lights, I chased the Milky Way with my camera! The Davidson Windmill is located just outside of Superior on Wisconsin hwy #13.
Weather forecast: Clear Skies
Moon forecast: Shining, but not too much. Setting about 2 am.
Milky Way forecast: Core will be in proper position at 2 am.
This kind of research and much more goes into a Milky Way photograph. First there is only about one month per year that the core of the Milky Way is properly positioned for me to “get” the photograph I wanted of this windmill. Earlier in the Spring the Milky Way would be positioned to far to the east. Later in the Summer the Milky Way would be position to far to the west in the night sky.
Obviously I needed clear skies, but in addition I wanted some moonlight to illuminate the windmill, but not too much moonlight. In addition I needed the moon in the proper position in the sky to shine upon the Davidson Windmill.
Last night I set my alarm for 12:45 am and within five minutes of waking up I was driving to my photoshoot location where I arrive at 1:30 am.
Thus, photographs like this image do not just happen by accident. A huge amount of planning goes into execution. Finally, even before I take a photograph I need to see “in my mind” what I believe the end result will look like … and oh yes, I miss a lot of sleep!
For other photographers, this is one image (not multiple stacked images). I was using my Sony A6000 with a Rokinon wide angle lens. The aperture was set to 2.0 (wide open), the exposure was 25 seconds, and my ISO was 2000.
Here is a slightly different treatment. Everything is the same except I now had an ISO of 3200 and a 20 second exposure.
Northern Lights Memorial Day Weekend 2017 (video)
Lady Aurora danced over northern Minnesota this Memorial Day Weekend 2017. It was a great night to be out in the wilderness. I took both videos of the Northern Lights with my Sony A6000 with an ISO setting of 3,200. Normally folks do time lapse videos, but I was actually able to take “real time videos” ! In the second video you are able to hear Common Loons calling in the background. All night long the birds sang … confused by the bright light which made them think it was pre-dawn.
The first image was taken before true darkness … lingering light after sunset. Crazy Beautiful.
Little Stone Lake near Brimson, Minnesota (45 miles north of Duluth)
The Deeps (200 yards from the end of my driveway in Duluth)
The Videos …