The Painted Heavens

[Rajan Parrikar]

Northern Lights tonight over Lake Mývatn in north Iceland. For more, go here (http://www.parrikar.com/blog/2010/10/10/the-painted-heavens/).

http://www.parrikar.org/images/LL/aurora.jpg

[Andy brown]

Well, I'll be the first, BREATH TAKING!!!

Brilliant, well done. Lucky you to witness that first hand.

[Mary Penta Robinson]

BREATH TAKING!!!

Brilliant, well done. Lucky you to witness that first hand.
Ditto from me.

[Mike Shimwell]

Very beautiful - was the exposure reasonably long, and what iso and aperture did you use? The stars are nice and bright, sugesting either a very black night sky (something I long for over here in the UK) or a contrast boost in file preparation?

Mike

[fahim mohammed]

Indeed..beautiful photography. Appealing to the senses and emotions at first sight..

Well done sir.

[Rajan Parrikar]

Very beautiful - was the exposure reasonably long, and what iso and aperture did you use? The stars are nice and bright, sugesting either a very black night sky (something I long for over here in the UK) or a contrast boost in file preparation?

Mike

The EXIF from the file has all the details:

Camera Maker: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens: EF14mm f/2.8L II USM
Image Date: 2010-10-10
Focal Length: 14mm
Focus Distance: Infinite
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure Time: 20.000 s
ISO equiv: 800
Exposure Bias: none
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)
White Balance: Auto
Flash Fired: No

[Paul Abbott]

Rajan, this is a beautiful composition of these lights! The aspect you have in looking directly up at this light-fall is fantastic. The star-field is a great backdrop, too. Nice one!

[John Angulat]

Northern Lights tonight over Lake Mývatn in north Iceland. For more, go here (http://www.parrikar.com/blog/2010/10/10/the-painted-heavens/).


http://www.parrikar.org/images/LL/aurora.jpg

Spectacular image Rajan, as are the others on your site!
I've always dreamed of experiencing the Northern Lights.
It must have been a truly wonderful experience.

[Rachel Foster]

That's lovely!

[Andy brown]

I live in southern Australia,latitude 36 degrees south, once in every few decades we will be able to see the aurora australis (southern lights), the last time it was visible was about ten years ago (that I know of), I had a housemate at the time who came home late one night and saw the aurora. He told me in the morning, he thought about waking me up but decided not to.
I would have killed to have seen it.

Maybe one day.

Something vaguely similar that I have seen is massive congregations of phosphorescent organisms in the ocean on a dark night where each wave that broke was a glowing, luminescent, limey green explosion. That was pretty special too.

[Andy brown]

Rajan, in the twenty seconds of exposure (a nice time frame BTW because the stars still appear as point sources of light not elongated), was there any movement of the lights or are they static for that time period?

[Rajan Parrikar]

Rajan, in the twenty seconds of exposure (a nice time frame BTW because the stars still appear as point sources of light not elongated), was there any movement of the lights or are they static for that time period?

Andy,

20 seconds is about the outer limit before the point sources start generating visible trails at 100%. You may be able to stretch that to 30 seconds if you don't look too closely at the image. After that the trails are easily discernible.