Whats caused this?

[YorkshirePudding]

I did a star trail on Monday night,


Star trail by J.F.T, on Flickr

Looking at the bottom of the pic there is a slight rainbow effect that I never really paid any attention to, but looking through each photo by itself it's changing.
1

_DSC3349 by J.F.T, on Flickr
2

_DSC3375 by J.F.T, on Flickr
3

_DSC3374 by J.F.T, on Flickr

Num 1 from the start 2/3 from the middle of the set.
The night they were taken there was some Northern Light activity and the only thing I can think of that I've caught a bit of it.

What do others think?

[rxtx]

Certainly looks like it to me, where were you?

[YorkshirePudding]

Just outside Halifax, West Yorkshire.

[tmk2]

Somewhere on here somebody mentioned that the northern lights was going to visible in Scotland so could be the same event

[YorkshirePudding]

This one,

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Interesting that the last poster mentions seeing green in the sky.

[TomE]

Yep, that's certainly similar to what I was seeing, they were only just visible with the naked eye and if you didn't know they were there, I don't think you would have noticed them.

[YorkshirePudding]

Thanks for that, could well be Northern Lights then.

[Pints]

First thoughts were aurora borealis, and the posts seem to confirm.

[rxtx]

Do you have those in RAW? Cool off the white balance and boost the rest of the colours a little, you might be able to bring the aurora out a bit more.

[Brigand]

The day after the Northern Lights were alleged to be seen in the UK, on BBC Kent weather there was a picture shown of the Lights seen in Gravesend I think.

Regardless of the place, they were seen here in Kent so you're just as likely to have seen them 'oop North.

Good pics by the way! I was sat in my garden the other night wondering if you can take those longer exposure shots on my DSLR, or whether it was the preserve of film cameras...

[YorkshirePudding]

rxtx said:

Do you have those in RAW? Cool off the white balance and boost the rest of the colours a little, you might be able to bring the aurora out a bit more.

Done in jpeg but,


Aurora Borealis by J.F.T, on Flickr

Brigand said:

Good pics by the way! I was sat in my garden the other night wondering if you can take those longer exposure shots on my DSLR, or whether it was the preserve of film cameras...

Cheers, have a look at this, http://longexposuretips.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-t...

Written by ph'er AndWhyNot,

[rxtx]

Nice

[AndWhyNot]

I'd be inclined to agree based on colour although I'm surprised how low to the horizon it appears to be - is that composition looking uphill? If you've got many pics where they feature, a timelapse of cropped frames might bring out some of the dancing for which the aurora phenomena is known.

Brigand said:

Good pics by the way! I was sat in my garden the other night wondering if you can take those longer exposure shots on my DSLR, or whether it was the preserve of film cameras...

It's actually easier with digital as the relationship between stops of light over long exposure remains linear whereas with film you need to allow for reciprocity failure, meaning guesswork and headaches trying to calculate exposure duration.

[YorkshirePudding]

rxtx said:

Nice

Cheers.

AndWhyNot said:

I'd be inclined to agree based on colour although I'm surprised how low to the horizon it appears to be - is that composition looking uphill? If you've got many pics where they feature, a timelapse of cropped frames might bring out some of the dancing for which the aurora phenomena is known.

Thanks for the timelapse idea, I've got maybe 20 shots where it's quite pronounced and yes the camera was looking uphill.

[Class One]

YorkshirePudding said:

Done in jpeg but,


Aurora Borealis by J.F.T, on Flickr

Just out of interest what were your settings for this shot? Just trying to improve my star pics and not been having alot of success. Nice shot of the aurora BTW.

Edited by Class One on Monday 3rd October 20:56

[YorkshirePudding]

Class One said:

Just out of interest what were your settings for this shot? Just trying to improve my star pics and not been having alot of success. Nice shot of the aurora BTW.

Cheers, Nikon D300 with a Tokina 11-16 at 11mm, 30 sec at f2.8 with an ISO 400.

Anyone know how to stack images into a timelapse as I seem to be

[AndWhyNot]

Download StarStaX for free from www.StarStaX.net - great for stacking and has a timelapse option built in.

[YorkshirePudding]

Thanks Andy but I've already downloaded Star Stax but I can't seem to find the timelapse option, will have another look tomorrow.