WC #350 - Magnetospheric Magnificence

Your effort is rewarded with beauty. Print this large and hang it where everyone can see it. It will make for many evening's stories over a nice glass of wine.

Just stunning, Gary. I can see why this is special to you- a unique image, and unique experience to reward your efforts. Really hope I am lucky enough to witness this phenomenon one day.

5 hours? My patience runs thin after 5 minutes.
Oh well, it was worth it. Probably the best northern lights photo I've come across.

You know what, Gary, this is really nice. I love the way the Northern Lights appear in your panorama. I think you should be really proud of this, especially since you worked so hard to get it. Your efforts were definitely worth it. I've never seen the in person, and this depiction is one of the most compelling I've ever seen. Congratulations.

Wow! That's all i can say for now.

Very pretty. The mountains complement the aurora perfectly. Now how I wish I was there to see it! :)

Gary: I hurt my jaw on the desktop when this opened. Knocked my -meter clean off the scale. Absolutely stunning image.>=))>

absolutely stunning. I'm speechless.
JG

An incredible shot Gary. Your perseverence paid off in dramatic fasion

Thanks, everyone! I'm glad you enjoyed this scene. I forgot to mention that the warm light on the mountains at the left is from the town of Valdez, Alaska.

I think this is as good as you could ever hope for! Congrats!

Gary, This is beautiful. I remember either this or a very similar one from an earlier post. I really like this--the light on the mountains and patterns in the Northern Lights. Just magnificent

Carol

Spectacular shot Gary. I am glad your efforts were rewarded! (I guess that's what we live for as photographers...that one time where it pays off big time).

beautiful gary!

Gary, this is outstanding. Congratulations on the EP! Next time you decide to go get a shot like this I wanna tag along, okay?

Wow.. I missed seeing this until now. Great image. Your perseverence and vision certainly paid off. Congrats on the EP.

Great stuff. Congrats on the image and EP

Congratulations, Gary, Well deserved EP

Carol

This is gorgeous Gary. Incredible scene, and well deserving of the EP.

Thank you, all, for the kind words

Oh my, what a pano. Well deserving of the EP pick. Congratulations!

Stunning!
Gary, I would love to know some of the technical details please.

Sure thing, Johan. It was 3 horizontal frames, all shot at ISO-100, f8.0, 10 sec with my Sony DSC-F707. I would rather have shot vertical frames to get more resolution plus more lights and more foreground but it would have required a lot more frames and it was all I could do to squeeze in 3 frames between wind gusts. It didn't help that a 10 sec. exposure with the Sony actually takes 20 seconds because it shoots a second exposure with the shutter closed and subtracts the electronic noise from the first exposure to control the noise level. It works good but everything takes twice as long. One thing in my favor was that the lights were quite stable at the time so they didn't blur as much as I had expected. As it turned out, because the full moonlight was so strong, 10 sec was actually too long and the image was far too light to be realistic so I darkened it considerably after stitching the frames into a panorama with Panorama Factory. I tried to get it down to light levels that were as real as possible. It still seems a bit light but the moon was so bright you could read a magazine by it and easily drive without headlights (at 2:00 AM around Valdez there's no one else on the road so I actually tried it )

It's beautiful!
Thanks for sharing it.

Congratulations on pulling this off. It came out incredibly well. Having endured the cold shooting auroras at night in northern Sweden, I know what you were going through. The conditions you had to work with must've been amazing though... I was shooting at ISO400 or 800, getting only 25 second exposures at f/3.5. The fact you were able to stop down to f/8 and get 10 second images at ISO100 is fantastic. Again, congratulations. This is a real winner.

Congratulations Gary..............I'd say you are the envy of us all for the time being!

Spectacular presentation of this scene - wonderful handling of the light.

Breathtaking image! I would love to see this as a very large print. Just stunning.

this is wonderful, somehow I missed this.

That's an incredible display, Gary. Congratulations on the 2008 EPA.

Having been fortunate enough to see a few Northern Lights displays, it's a pleasure to view this wonderful capture. Congratulations, Gary!

Well done Gary, this is indeed a beautiful photograph, you should be proud to have made this.