Zina Mirsky  


Untitled by Zina Mirsky

October 2024 - Untitled

October 2024 - Zina Mirsky

Original

About the Image(s)

On the morning of September 11, NOAA noted a major coronal ejection; this image was taken that night. The sunstorm resulted in heavy and lengthy aurora activity for us to enjoy - we were outside for over four hours just taking one picture after another. This was taken with an Olympus OM-1 mirrorless, 7mm lens, set to almost infinity (my vision is not clear enough for me to focus well but my history with this lens puts "infinity" at just under the infinity mark, and it seems to have worked), 15 seconds, f6.3. ISO was 1600.

I did no editing other than a slight crop at the right side to eliminate headlights in a parking lot. What is most interesting is that my eyes saw this in black and white (second image attached) until we were out a very long time, and my night vision accommodated sufficiently that I could see pale reds and greens.

The camera always captures what the human eye misses. Even without intense colors, the aurora activity was captivating and beautiful in shape and design.


This round’s discussion is now closed!
7 comments posted




Lori Azevedo   Lori Azevedo
Hi Zina:

Wow - 4 hours of watching this must have been amazing. I take some night photography and sometimes your only options are to set the focus at infinity. I think your camera setting are correct. The only thing I might have done would be to adjust the vertical in the manual transformations to straighten the trees and run a denoise program for finish. Other than that, I bet it was a night to remember.   Posted: 10/09/2024 17:54:08
Zina Mirsky   Zina Mirsky
thank you - I'll try adjusting the verticle, and that will give me a new skill to bring to this 7mm almost-fish-eye for the future! I tried a denoise through LR but my visual acuity was not sufficient to see whether it did any good or not. This tells me not! And I will try again. For sure am hoping for more aurora to practice on next March. (By the way, we did see aurora colors right here in Walnut Creek CA mid-week -- after heavy solar flares -- and that was amazing, even if not as vivid as these. It's amazing to see that red glow in a city at our latitude.)   Posted: 10/14/2024 01:39:01



Carol Heffernan   Carol Heffernan
Zina, I'm so jealous. How amazing it must have been to experience this. It's hard to focus on moving light in the sky, but you did a great job. Even at 15 seconds, you can see the star trails, but the aurora looks in focus. I'm sure it was hard to chose just one shot from all you must have taken, but it's really special.   Posted: 10/14/2024 00:41:02



Pauline Jaffe   Pauline Jaffe
What a fabulous image. The reds, greens, purples, are absolutely amazing. I love the way the pinetrees come across the bottom of the image. It's quite lovely.
  Posted: 10/14/2024 17:39:15



Alec Chester   Alec Chester
This is such a great shot of a magnificent event. I've always wanted to see it. The colors are beautiful, and the image is truly striking. I tried Lori's suggestion of straitening the trees but had no luck. I did use the Topaz AI for denoise. Here it is:   Posted: 10/15/2024 17:23:00
Comment Image
Zina Mirsky   Zina Mirsky
Thank you! I too had no success in straightening the trees without warping the rest of the image; I think it's the quasi-fisheye-ness of the 7mm lens. But the Denoise works beautifully and I'm glad you did even a better job of it than I did. /z   Posted: 10/15/2024 17:26:34



Rick Taft   Rick Taft
Zina,
Very nice shots (I also liked the B&W version). We were supposed to see the Aurora here in CT, but alas at least where I live I could not see anything. Too much ambient light, maybe? Re: straightening the vertical, with a 7mm lens I suspect that is simply not possible...it's the trade-off you make for the extreme wide angle. I have no experience with night sky shots, with or without the Aurora, so I really can't offer any constructive comments apart from liking the shots.   Posted: 10/16/2024 00:18:46