AntarcticDoctor

To Download right click > save as => Aurora

Last night (well, to be fair, in the early hours of this morning) I spotted a pale auroral band over the southern horizon, and decided to put into practice the experiments I’ve been conducting with my camera. I set up a time-lapse exposure of the southern sky, and left it running for more than two hours, until the battery died in the cold. Fortunately, around 0200 there was a significant event and a beautiful aurora. While the pictures can’t capture the intensity and life of an aurora in its full glory, the video gives a taste of what it is like.

[MEDIA=1]

For interests sake – the video consists of hundreds of 30 second photographic exposures played at 8 frames per second, so you are seeing time pass at a rate of 4 minutes/second, or 240x acceleration. I’ve included an example of the still images below:

On May 17th we saw the last rays of sun before the winter – you can read about it in my previous post, Little Rays of Sunshine.  At the time, I shot some video footage, and have acquired software to edit it, so I’m now pleased to present my cinematographic début, “The Last of the Light.”

[MEDIA=6]

Warning – this is a large file (15 Mb) and is not recommended for users on slow connections.

The April newsletter for the team is available here online – click the link to go to the PDF file. Enjoy

SANAE 47 Newsletter – April 2008