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Aurora Over South Texas20 November, 2003Click here for 1000 X 684 pixel 114 K .jpg |
This is one of my "accidental" aurora shots. I never knew there was an aurora happening the night of November 20, 2003. Who would expect such a thing at 29 degrees north latitude in south Texas. The image was taken around local midnight with a spare camera that was attached to the same telescope I was using to piggyback a telephoto lens with another camera. This 30 minute image was taken on Kodak E200 film pushed one stop. The20 mm F/3.5 Nikkor was roughly aimed just above Polaris and was to patrol for meteors while the other camera did the real work.
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Aurora Over South Texas21 November, 2003Click here for 1000 X 671 pixel 104 K .jpg |
A second image of the same northern area taken about an hour later with the same camera as the 1st image above. The reddish glow was not seen visually, but the sky looked strange as the stars were just not as crisp as would be expected considering the sky was the clearest it had been for over half a year.
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Aurora Over South Texas21 November, 2003Click here for 1000 X 672 pixel 75 K .jpg |
After shutting down the telescope about 2 AM, on November 21, 2003, I put the 20 mm lens on a tripod and aimed it at Polaris over my observatory dome for some star trails. I opened the shutter and took a two hour nap, getting up at 4 AM to close the shutter before moonrise. I was still unaware that an aurora was in progress. By now, the heavier part of the aurora had drifted to the west, to the left of the observatory. This image was the last ever taken of my observatory before it was dismanteled a week later because of severe weather damage.
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Aurora Over South Texas21 November, 2003Click here for 673 X 1000 pixel 161 K .jpg |
This image was taken at the same time as the star trail image above, but used a 105 mm F/2.5 Nikkor and E200 film. The bright star curving to the upper left of center is Polaris and shows how hight the aurora got in south Texas. Earlier in the evening, the aurora noticably affected photography as far south as Scutum.
