I have been an Aurora Hunter for many many years. I have been fortunate to see Aurora Borealis several times and Aurora Australis many times, but the event on Saturday 11 May 2024 was something else! One out of the box.
The sun had been shooting off X flares and M flares like popcorn a few days previously. They were earth directed so it resulted in NOAA declaring a G5 event.
During the day, all the indicators were looking good. So I gave a heads up on the Southwest Victoria, Australia Aurora Hunters facebook page. Then there was the quandary of where I should go if the aurora showed up. To the coast? To the mountains? I wanted something special. After hours of deliberation and google map searching, I made my decision. I was staying close to home. I had my Grandaughters first birthday party that afternoon And in the vicinity I was looking at I would be able to catch a variety of foreground scenes. If I went to the Port Fairy lighthouse (which I have always wanted to catch an aurora at) I would just have the lighthouse.
So we went to the party, had an early takeaway tea and on dusk headed to our destination. I started setting up my first of three cameras and took my first test shot. It was already there!!! I quickly put up on the group "Go. Go. Go."
I hadnt even finished setting up the cameras and dark was descending quickly and it was already starting to go off!! So I was initially in a bit of a panic.
I had set up the Canon 6D with the 24-70mm so asked hubby to go down and keep pressing the shutter button for me whilst I finished setting up the Canon 6DII with a 14mm Samyang and the Canon 6RII with the 20mm Samyang.
I set up the Canon 6RII to take continual shots so I could then play around with the 6DII. The aurora by this stage was so huge it was reaching 90 degrees up in the sky and I could not capture it in one frame. So I did a 180 degree panorama. Thats when I realised that the aurora was also behind me!!
I then started wandering around the paddock getting a variety of shots. The thing I teach in my workshops is that composition in your night photos is as equally important as composition in your day photos. So I wanted to capture foreground elements in each photo.
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Hubby and I also captured a selfie with only a headtorch for light. He then took some shots by himself and I merged two of his shots to create this awesome panorama.
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It was only 8.30pm and it was starting to die down so we decided to head home for a cuppa and to warm up.
At 10.00pm I decided to head out down the road as it was still going. So I went to one of my favourite little places. At this stage the aurora was not huge. But the colours were gorgeous. I played around for a while
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There was a big band of green arcing across the horizon so I took some panoramas to get it all in. At 11.30pm I was about to call it quits and messaged hubby I was going to pack up.
I got all my gear back into the car. I got into the drivers seat for one last look. Oh. My....... Beams were shooting up into the sky. I quickly grabbed the camera I had on the back seat which was still on the tripod and raced back to roughly where I was standing before. I then took another panorama. It was HUGE!!!!! A massive show. I spent have the time just watching as I knew this was an event out of the box and was clearly visible to my eyes albeit the colour is muted. At 12.30 I finally headed home, a happy and tired girl, after just witnessing most probably the largest Aurora Australis I will see in my lifetime. I captured so many images and I hope I did it all justice. It was a huge dose of AWESOMENESS!!!!