Chasing the Aurora Borealis in the Eastern Sierra, June 23, 2015

I read online yesterday that a particularly intense solar magnetic storm might enable the aurora borealis to be visible across much of the United States, as far south as San Francisco and Lake Tahoe. I could see from early results posted from the East Coast and Missouri that the event was progressing as expected.

The aurora borealis tends to be strongest in the location on the earth opposite the sun, and at 11 pm the aurora forecasting apps were showing the strongest magnetic field dipping down in the middle of the United States, so I had roughly one to two hours before that strongest part of the storm would reach us in the Western U.S..

The best visibility of the aurora would be to the north, but I live south of the light pollution from the Carson Valley and Minden/Gardnerville Nevada. There is also the Washignton Fire sending smoke in that direction, so I headed a few miles south then up into the Sierra Nevada to get further from lights and above the smoke.

Partway up the steep road I shot to the north, but the light pollution was too great, so I continued higher.  I tried shooting more to the east to cut out light pollution to the north, and there was a promising increase in green and red color in the sky, but common airglow can cause both of those colors, so I needed to try shooting a sequence of images and create a time-lapse video to see if the red-pink color on the horizon would dance like you see in aurora videos.

Sure enough, there was some aurora color on the horizon, and it gained in strength, shooting upwards into space and dancing across the sky:

 

I shot the time-lapse video from the high, dry, clear skies of the Sierra Nevada, near the Little Antelope Pack Station above the town of Walker, California: https://youtu.be/NaQiOQrQ_S8?list=PL6012D9822C1BA1E7

For comparison, I also shot the sky more to the south- southeast, to get a reading of the ambient green and red airglow colors in the sky.

It was cool to see the aurora borealis all the way down here along the California - Nevada border.  The forecast for tonight isn't quite as strong, but it's a rare opportunity that is hard to resist, so I may have to go back out and try again!


           
www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com

The rays of red light could be 65 miles high above the earth, and 600 miles north!

Chasing the Moon: Lunar Eclipse Photography October 2014

Partially eclipsed moon setting behind the Sierra Nevada

Lunar eclipses can be a fun challenge to photograph.  The moon is so much brighter than the landscape, most photographers simply choose to expose for either the moon detail or the landscape with the too-bright moon over it.  Even the exposure for the moon itself can be a challenge if you try to capture detail in both the lit and shaded portions of the moon's surface while the moon is partially eclipsed.  Of course the challenge only gets greater if you try to zoom in on the moon's surface, and the moon orbits the earth and moves relative to your position on the surface of the rotating earth.

I captured the moon from three places on the night of October 7-8, 2014 in the dark skies of the Eastern Sierra: first from the shoreline of Mono Lake as the full moon rose just before sunset, then from the shoreline of Convict Lake as the moon entered totality and then exited totality just as it was setting behind the Sierra Nevada, and finally from Minaret Vista as the moon, still in the penumbral phase of eclipse, set behind The Minarets just before dawn.  

Composite shot captured using an ultra-wide lens

The Mono Lake sunset moon rise was pretty straightforward, since the moon and landscape can both be picked up clearly in a single exposure then the moon rises just before sunset.  The moon went behind a cloud as it continued to rise during blue hour, enabling more nice shots without having to process multiple exposures.

I tried a number of things at once during the eclipse.  I had three cameras going, one to capture only a wide angle sequence of the landscape and moon and its reflection in Convict Lake as the moon went in and back out of totality, a second camera to capture a telephoto time-lapse sequence of the eclipse on a sky-tracking mount, and a third one simply to assess exposure changes, so I could reset the other two cameras on the fly to follow the changing brightness of the moon.

Since the moon takes a while to get fully out of the the earth's shadow, once the moon set at Convict Lake, I had time drive to Minaret Vista and arrive in tome to capture it setting.

As a major bonus, I realized that the blue dot i was picking up just to the left of the moon during totality was the planet Uranus!

I was pretty tired after getting very little sleep that night, but of course it was completely worth the time and effort.  I can't wait for the next lunar eclipse, coming up this fall.

Update June 2015: I'd like to thank the +The Huffington Post UK for featuing my composite eclipse sequence image in an article featuring photos entered in the 2015 Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest conducted by the Royal Observatory at the +Royal Museums Greenwich : http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/06/03/astronomy-photographer-of-the-year_n_7500346.html?1433327342 I'll place more of my photos from this lunar eclipse on the new app +dripthat: http://bit.ly/1dhaequ

The blue planet Uranus could be seen just to the left of the eclipsed moon during the total eclipse in October 2014

Fall Colors Report for Eastern Sierra Mono County October 16, 2014

Eastern Sierra fall colors, Mono County October 8, 2014

The latest reports are saying that many locations survived this week's wind storms better expected, and although there are many many bare trees at higher elevations, there are also colorful ones and others which still have green and will continue to change over the next 1-2 weeks. So it looks like we'll have prime conditions in Mono County this week, as good as it's going to get.

Here in Antelope Valley at 5000 feet elevation in the northern end of Mono County, the cottonwood trees are just starting to turn, so the Walker/Coleville/Topaz area could be nice for those in 1-3 weeks.   and I hope to get out to check current conditions further south in the county later today or tomorrow, and hopefully meet up with some of the folks we've met through photography in recent years.

These images of colorful aspen trees were taken in Mono County last week October 9, before the winds.

More fall colors photos from the Eastern Sierra: https://plus.google.com/b/112689391100142840168/photos/112689391100142840168/albums/5922898679249951921

Blog: www.MyPhotoGuides.com
    

Perseid Meteor Shower 2013

Perseid Meteor Shower August 2013:

Don't watch in this tiny window though... start it, then click "watch on YouTube" at the bottom, then the little gear icon to make it go 1080p or 720p HD, then click on the icon to make it go full screen.  Enjoy!

I have a copy on Vimeo as well in case you might like to compare the two:


Perseid Meteor Shower 2013 from Jeff Sullivan on Vimeo.

Watch this in 720P or 1080P HD resolution. Over six minutes of footage from recent nights in 2013 during the Perseid Meteor Shower. The slower, mostly horizontal lights are airplanes. The brief flashes of mostly vertical streaks are the meteors (a few slower ones are satellites). Many meteors are faint, so you'll only see most of them if you follow the instructions above and change the viewing resolution to HD and expand the video full screen.
For the soundtrack, the timelapse video of the Perseid meteor shower is set to the InFiction String Remix of David Bowie's "Let's Dance", as featured in the recent Kia commercial (used with permission).

All images © 2013 Jeff Sullivan. To license Perseid meteor shower or other time-lapse footage, please contact me. All unauthorized uses will be pursued.