A fairly bright aurora display kicks up to the east, as Leo and Jupiter (on the horizon) rise in the east, in the late night hours of New Year’s Eve, Dec 31, 2015. The stars of the Big Dipper and Ursa Major are at top left. This is a 2.5-second exposure at f/1.6 with the Sigma 24mm Art lens, and at ISO 6400 with the Nikon D750, as a test of high-cadence rate time-lapse shooting, taken from home.
The Big and Little Dippers over Quailway Cottage near Portal, Arizona, as the Big Dipper rises in the northeast, with all but the end star of the handle visible. Polaris is at upper left, and the Little Dipper hangs down from it. Airglow adds the green streaks at right. This is a blend of 4 tracked exposures for the sky and 4 untracked exposures for the ground, blended along the tree line, as a sharp mask dividing earth and sky was not possible. In fact for the ground shots the camera was moved down to include more of the ground, as the 35mm lens used here wasn’t quite wide enough to include all the scene in one frame. So this is a small vertical panorama. Each exposure was 2 minutes at f/2 and at ISO 1600. Plus an additional shot taken thru the Kenko Softon filter was layered in for the star glows. Shot Dec 10, on the last clear night of a fine week-long run of shooting.
Public stargazing at the Rothney Observatory Open House on November 21, 2015, on a cool but clear late autumn night, with the Big Dipper low in the north over the Visitor Centre, and the waxing gibbous Moon providing the illumination. About 400 people attended.
