The night Aurora G2 Storm Never Came

It's not the first time all the fillibuster about the massive CME coming our way broken by one portral spread like wildfire by others got folks all excited about an aurora that might show all the way south to NYC. If it's gonna hit NYC it'll definitely be a big show in Stavanger, KP5 is an event, KP6 you can watch from your porch from anywhere in the city.

A few hours before nightfall doubts started to permeate. Then a couple of posts about how it might not actually take place at the estimited time. Even SolarHam put out a post about how the CME on Wednesday might be directed away from the earth and how it's travelling at slower speed that earlier projected.

Having stumbled upon aurora in Stavanger a few years back while photographing Milkyway in Sele, posted a timelapse of it on Stavanger Aurora Chasers (created by a friend who was excited about the phenomenon), I have experienced this anti-climax many times having relied purely on published CMEs and forecasts. After numerous instances of freezing under subzero temperatures in the oddest locations I've grown wary of predictions, and almost never relied on any of those aurora apps.

These days, I only go out if I've actually seen it myself or have seen photos of it being seen. No more predictions. I much more enjoy looking at the night sky with the stars and Milkyway. If there's aurora I'll record it. It cold sitting around waiting for an aurora in the middle of the night in winter. It's colder still if aurora never came.

All shots with EF50/1,2 on Canon 6D: WB=5000K, Curves tweaked in CaptureOne.

Summicron 35/2 by the Pale Moonlight

I just couldn't resist it ... the Sony A7S is and has been my main low light night sky shooter since 2016, Summicron 35mm is an f/2 Leica lens I acquired back in 2003. I had to try both outdoors in the dark shooting the night sky. The moon was high up, there were scattered but interesting looking winter clouds about all competing with the bright grandeur of the moon.

It took a while for me to suss out the proper infinity mark required to get the stars relatively in focus, I hit the sweet spot on the Summicron at marker "8 m" or "25 feet". Different lenses has a different point where stars focussed perfectly. Samyang 8/3.5 for example hits it right in the middle of infinity. It varies for each lens and manufacturer.

I shot at f/2.8, Iso 2000, at 1sec, WB 3200K.

This last shot is actually a stitchy of 6 individual shots and cropped. Notice the break at the bottom of the image.

On nights like these I'm always reminded of a joker before he became The Joker , "Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale mooonlight?"  I think  I have on several occasions. That time poling down Sg Selungo from Long Siut to Long Tungan braving roaring rapids and evading boulders in the rain in a fully loaded rickety wooden sampan in complete darkness (Dec 2009). Another time, a vertical drop straight into Sg Lawas in the middle of the night resulting from a misstep at the boatlanding (Feb 2011). Or holding on to the helideck perimeter fence when the MV Resolution was bounced up and then down by 25m waves at sea during the Mt Pinatubo explosion (June 1991).