September 7-8, 2002 Auroras

Auroras from 2001, Auroras from 2002, Auroras from 2003,Auroras from 2004, Auroras From 2005

September 7-8, 2002 Aurora Display

Completely unexpected. I was all ready to watch the NASCAR race Saturday night. Earlier in the day I was looking at various aurora sites. At about 11AM activity started picking up. I figured it wouldn't last until nightfall here in Wisconsin. Needless to say, 11 hours later the activity was still strong. Abby and I ventured out. I usually only bring one tripod with me but this time I brought two. I set the Pentax 645NII on the Gitzo G1325 carbon fiber tripod and the Canon EOS Elan 7 an older Velbon tripod.

Oh, I also tried aurora shooting with the Hasselblad Xpan... Look for a meteor on the left side.

The following images were taken with the Pentax 645NII with the 45mm f/2.8 lens and TS-110 timer remote in a sequence during the peak of the display. The exposures are in the 40-45 second range.

The following images were taken with a Canon Elan 7 with 28mm f/1.8. They were taken with at most 20 second exposures. The first image shows what was happening for the first hour or so.