Earlier this month there was a high level of geomagnetic activity which meant that there was a better-than-average chance of seeing the Aurora Borealis at relatively southern latitudes. Although the weather didn't look ideal, I figured I might as well take a look.
Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse, with lots of cloud coming in. Additionally, the geomagnetic storm, which has been quite strong earlier in the day, had died down by the time it got dark on the west coast.
However, I was able to get this shot with the stars visible through the passing clouds. The moon was high in the sky, lighting up the clouds from above, giving some interesting texture. In the distance you can see rain falling on the mountains (the storm had passed over where I was standing about 15 minutes earlier).
The good news is that we are approaching a solar maximum, which increases the frequency and strength of geomagnetic activity, so there should be other opportunities for viewing the aurora in the next few months.
Two photographs, one for the stars at ISO 1600, f/2.8, 20 seconds, and one for the foreground at ISO 400, f/2.8, 80 seconds.
Worth viewing large!
You can view my other star photographs here:
http://365project.org/abirkill/tags/astrophotography
Also, for anyone local to Vancouver, I have five of my photographs (four of which are star photographs) being exhibited at 'The Dark of the Night' exhibition at the Photohaus Gallery on West 7th Avenue (and
@westcoastwallis has also got some photos accepted!). The opening reception is on Friday at 7pm, and is free and open to the public, and the exhibition will be on for a week following this. For more details, check out the Photohaus Gallery website (you may recognise the photo being used to promote the exhibition!)
http://photohausgallery.com/
To blend the two shots, I loaded them both into Photoshop as layers, with the ISO 400 (lower-noise) shot on top. I then applied a layer mask to hide this top-most layer (so you are seeing back down to the higher-noise ISO 1600 shot), and then using the brush tool, paint on the layer mask so that the parts of the ISO 400 shot I want to see are shown.
As with most things in Photoshop, there are various ways to do the same thing!
Because the two shots had the same exposure (ISO 400 being two stops less than ISO 1600, and 80 seconds being two stops more than 20 seconds), it was a very easy blend, as the two shots looked identical at first glance. However, the lower ISO shot had less noise, which allowed me to bring out more shadow detail in the water, rocks and nearby hillside, and the higher-ISO shot was a short enough exposure to freeze the motion of the stars.