Mini Aurora at Skyline

[JimFox]

I have decided to think of Airglow as a Mini Aurora. It might be the closest I get to an aurora, and where I used to try and get rid of it when I process the photos now I have decided to embrace it.

This was when Ben, Jeffrey and I got together last week for a fun few days shooting in Utah.

The moon was not ideal as it was almost a new moon, and I prefer to have more moon light to light the ground. But, sometimes you just have to work with what you got. So in this case Ben and I made sure to shoot longer exposures for the ground to get sharper less noisy images to blend in with the Milky Way.

So this is a 2 shot blend, the ground layer was ISO 400 at 5 or 7 mins and f1.8, and immediately after that shot I took a 25 sec Milky Way shot. So while it is 2 shots, they were essentially shot at the same time and from the same tripod holes.

As mentioned above, Airglow is very prominent in this one and I just embraced it. I even desaturated the green to knock down how much it was glowing.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[Ben Egbert]

This is neat Jim. How come we don't always see air glow?

I like your foreground a lot. I have decided that my camera is not a good match for milky way. It is a 5DSR, and the S stands for studio.

 

[AlanLichty]

I have the same question as Ben - why don't we see air glow more often? I like the foreground and MW but am not quite sure what to think of the air glow greens.

This is neat Jim. How come we don't always see air glow?

I like your foreground a lot. I have decided that my camera is not a good match for milky way. It is a 5DSR, and the S stands for studio.

You have just nailed the reason I bought the 5D Mk IV with less resolution than the 5DS and 5DSR - I have a much better dynamic range for less noise with higher ISO's. The mirrorless EOS R has the same user touch screen interface and sensors as the Mk IV.

 

[JimFox]

This is neat Jim. How come we don't always see air glow?

I like your foreground a lot. I have decided that my camera is not a good match for milky way. It is a 5DSR, and the S stands for studio.

Thanks Ben!

This is the spot I had set up the Sony A6400 at. I kind of liked it so I made sure to run over there before the Milky Way got too high and shot with the D850 also.

Airglow is a squirelly animal for sure!

 

[JimFox]

I have the same question as Ben - why don't we see air glow more often? I like the foreground and MW but am not quite sure what to think of the air glow greens.



You have just nailed the reason I bought the 5D Mk IV with less resolution than the 5DS and 5DSR - I have a much better dynamic range for less noise with higher ISO's. The mirrorless EOS R has the same user touch screen interface and sensors as the Mk IV.

Thanks Alan!

Yeah Airglow takes getting used to for sure. I have become accepting of it because I spend so much time up at night shooting the stars that it’s no longer bothering me. But as I said when I first encountered it I tried to remove it. I actually thought it was from the camera sensor overheating at night at first. It was only after some research I found out it was just something in the atmosphere.

So now... as your homework assignment, go look up Airglow in Wikipedia and see if you can make any sense as to why it happens and why it doesn’t always happen... it’s a head scratcher.

 

[Timmeh]

Hey Jim,

That is some intense air glow! Nice positioning of the core with the notch going into the canyon.

Tim

 

[JimFox]

Hey Jim,

That is some intense air glow! Nice positioning of the core with the notch going into the canyon.

Tim

Thanks so much Tim! It was fun finding all the different foreground options, and there was a ton of options.

 

[Sunny Sra]

Man this is awesome! did you take any with just the valley showing?

 

[JimFox]

Man this is awesome! did you take any with just the valley showing?

Thanks Sunny! I did take some with more valley showing, this was just at the end and I had my Sony A6400 set up here and I wanted a shot from there on my D850 too. Where I started at has an open view of the valley, I will process those later, I just really liked the foreground in this one a lot, so it went first.