Berg Lake Aurora

This shot is looking South towards the North Face of Mt Robson over a very still Berg Lake. It was an amazingly clear night with the Milky Way rising and no sign of the moon so I walked down from our camp to the lake to take some astrophotography. We then had an aurora fire up so I turned around to take some shots North and watched the Aurora come and go for about 30 min. After the main aurora had faded, I went back to take a few more shots looking south over the lake to Robson as the Milky Way had lined up with the low point in the range. We then experienced the aurora related phenomena of ‘Steve’ accompanied by a ‘Picket Fence’ below it. Given we were looking South from a latitude of 53’ North this just makes it all the more incredible. ‘Steve’ was formally scientifically investigated in 2017 and determined to be caused by a 25 km wide ribbon of hot gasses at an altitude of 300 km, temperature of 3000 °C and flowing at a speed of 6 km/s (compared to 10 m/s outside the ribbon). The ‘Picket Fence’ below was slowly cycling to the right of frame. Berg Lake sits at an altitude of 1,646 m (5,400 ft). The North Face of Mt Robson rises 2,308m (7,572ft) out of the lake to a total height of 3,954 m (12,972 ft) and is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. Mount Robson Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada.

Pyramid Lake Aurora

The last Aurora we were lucky enough to capture in 2018 a few days before the New Year. We had this display up at a particularly frosty Pyramid Lake in Jasper National Park; and it was quite dynamic to the eye. Aurora have been few and far between this last 12 months, so let’s hope this year we can officially call out 2018 as the solar minimum and things begin to pick up. That’s Pyramid Mountain shrouded in cloud on the left at 2,766m or 9,075ft.

Assiniboine, Milkey Way, and Mars

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable” Mary Olive Spent most of the night just below Nub Peak (2,755 m or 9,039 ft) to get this shot. I like the perspective higher up as Mount Assiniboine (3,618m or 11,870ft) rightfully towers over Sunburst Peak (2,849 m or 9,347 ft) in the foreground which you don’t appreciate at the nublet far below. Was a wee bit chilly up there at night. However between a warm dinner and our portable espresso machine, which @saultphotography and I lugged up there, we were warm and awake. Lucky to have a particularly large Mars thanks to its close 2018 approach and managed to line it up nicely with the top of Assiniboine. Made for an interesting decent with our head torches but we eventually made it back down to the tent just ahead of dawn, for a brief rest before getting up somewhat deliriously to shoot the sunrise at Magog Lake. Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada.

Steve over Ness Lake

Steve made a spectacular appearance running east/west right above Ness Lake! While related to the aurora borealis (or Northen Lights) ‘Steve’ is a discrete optical phenomenon that was only formally discovered in 2017 by aurora watchers from Alberta. It was subsequently determined to be caused by a 25 km wide ribbon of hot gasses at an altitude of 300 km, temperature of 3000 °C and flowing at a speed of 6 km/s (compared to 10 m/s outside the ribbon). The name "Steve" was taken from Over the Hedge, an animated comedy movie of 2006, in which its characters chose that name for something unknown. "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement" was suggested as a backronym of Steve which has since been adopted by the team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center studying Steve. The shot shows Steve on the right (light pink) with a picket fence aurora (green) on the left. There an unknown interaction with Steve that often causes the picket fence aurora along the side of it. Ness Lake, Northern British Columbia, Canada

Ness Lake Aurora Reflection

Northern lights over Ness Lake. Northern British Columbia, Canada.

Mrs Hunt’s Southern Sky

The southern sky rises over the windswept isolation of the cottage once occupied by Mrs Hunt. Ruby Hunt was one of the last to leave Maria island in 1968 before it became a National Park. She would operate a pedal wireless from the house, which at the time was the only communication link on the island with the mainland of Tasmania. If someone wished to send a message they would put it in a bottle, at night outside Mrs. Hunt’s door, and she would make the necessary call and leave the answer in the bottle for collection during the next night. Maria Island is a remote mountainous island located in the Tasman Sea, off the east coast of Tasmania, Australia. The island was named in 1642 by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman after Maria van Diemen (née van Aelst).

Southern Lights

The Aurora Australis or Southern Lights dances over the Great Lake of Tasmania's Central Plateau with individual beams or curtins visible. The phenomenon is sparked by electrically-charged electrons and protons accelerating down the Earth's magnetic field lines and colliding with neutral atoms in the upper atmosphere. The Central Plateau resides at an elevation of 1,036 m (3,398 feet) which provides clear sky's looking south to the pole. Green aurora tend to occur at altitudes from 100 – 250 km by oxygen atoms emitting light at 557.7 nano-metres. Red aurora are less common and form around 200 – 500 km from oxygen atoms emitting light at 630 nm. Tasmania, Australia

Scenery Cove Aurora

It is rare to find such stillness. No wind, no waves, no sound. So still I could set my tripod up on the deck of S/V BOB while at anchor and take a long exposure of the sky with no visible star movement. The silence out here can be deafening at times (at least once my kids are finally asleep!). Amazingly the G3 solar storm a few days ago was bright enough to cut though the endless blue twilight one experiences this time of year during the fleeting hours of semi darkness that you have when you’re up this far north. Happiness has always seemed a subjective state of mind to me, somewhat along the lines of Lucius Annaeus Seneca's words from two millennia ago that “a man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.” I do love mountains, sailing, and auroras; super chuffed to have combined them all in one shot. Scenery Cove, South East Alaska, USA.

Wombanook Milkyway

Out little ridgetop cabin under the milky way. Laguna, NSW,

Solar Storm Vivian Lake

Wide angle shot in the forest looking straight up into the sky during a G3 solar storm at 54 Degrees North. Vivian Lake, Prince George, Northern British Columbia, Canada.

Blood Moon

The full power of the sun’s rays just starting to hit the moon again after a total lunar eclipse on the 20th Jan 2019. The blood moon colour you see during lunar eclipses results from some of the longer wavelength red tones passing though the sides of the earth’s atmosphere while the majority of the shorter wavelength blues are blocked out. This is due to Rayleigh scattering which is the elastic scattering of sunlight through the earth's atmosphere. The amount of scattering is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength, so the longer wavelength warmer tones passes straight though the atmosphere without significant deflection, while the shorter blue wavelengths are scattered in all directions. This is the same phenomena that you see when looking across the long stretch of atmosphere directly into the sun at sunrise and sunset giving the sky its red/orange colour. The scattered blue tones absent at sunrise and sunset are what gives the sky its blue colour during the day.

Assiniboine Milky Way

“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.” Carl Sagan
 Few things make the mighty Mount Assiniboine (3,618 m or 11,870 ft) seem small; but the milky way has to be one of them. This is a ten shot stack with all shots taken using a 50mm f1.8 prime at ISO 6400 and a 10 second exposure time. Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada.

Outback Camping

There is some sense of peace to be found in isolation. Remote outback camping under the stars. Mutawintji National Park, New South Wales, Australia

Circle Lake STEVE

For all the astrophotographers and night sky enthusiasts out there I suggest you check out Bea Gallardo-Lacourt’s new paper “On the Origin of STEVE: Particle Precipitation or Ionospheric Skyglow?”. So we now know that while Steve accompanies an aurora, it is not actually formed by the same mechanism of particles raining down into the ionosphere. The paper suggests that Steve is an entirely new phenomenon distinct from typical auroras, as the POES-17 satellite detected no charged particles impacting with the ionosphere during the Steve event which was studied. This means that is likely produced by an entirely different yet unknown mechanism they call “skyglow”. The skyglow is somehow related to the band of fast-moving ions and super-hot electrons passing through the ionosphere right where Steve was observed. I took this shot of Steve over Circle Lake in Eskers Provincial Park. It was a very dark night so you can see some skyglow in the sky along with some green from the Aurora Borealis in the North to the right of frame. Northern British Columbia, Canada.

Warrumbungle Night

The milky way rises over a solitary tree in the Warrumbungles. The area has little light pollution to disturb astronomical viewing and is home to the Siding Spring observatory which is has more than a $100 million in scientific equipment including 44 telescopes. New South Wales, Australia

Sydney Glow

The milky way rises out of the dim glow of over 5 million people as a lonely waterfall cascades into the abyss that is the Grose valley. Few people outside of Australia realise that one of the world’s largest temperate forested wilderness areas borders on Sydney's metropolitan area, with its foothills starting less than 50 kilometres (31 mi) west of Sydney Harbour. The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area covers 10,300 square kilometres (4,000 sq mi) of wilderness and sits as a stark contrast to the city just beyond its boarder. After 25 years of settlement in Sydney, and numerous failed attempts, the mountains were first successfully crossed in 1813 by an expedition led by Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth. The ruggedness, isolation and impassability of the terrain held off most development in the region despite the area being suitable for dam construction and rich in coal and shale oil. First proposed as a National Park in 1932 a long fought conservation battle ended in 1959 with the formation of the Blue Mountains National Park. The falls, known as Bridal Veil falls , cascade 180m to the base of the cliff. Mt Banks at the end of the valley sits at an elevation of 1,049 m (3,442 ft) . The shot was taken from Grovetts Leap, Blue Mountains National Park, New South Wales, Australia

Ness Lake Frozen Aurora

“We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.” Rudyard Kipling’s faint voice from 1891 has seemed more relevant than ever to me over the past few months. Winter is here; so in the crisp -25 deg C (-13 F) air I headed out for a stroll onto Ness lake at around 2am last night under the light of the setting moon as if to check that I was still alive. In the distance the mesmerizing glow of the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis some thousands of km away in the Yukon, and the eerie sounds from the ice stress fracturing, quickly cleared my mind of other thoughts. The frozen lake, free of snow, has developed frost flowers over the past few days which create an amazing texture. The flowers grow from the moisture in the supersaturated vapor found directly above the ice that is caused by the sublimation of ice into the extremely dry, cold air. Ness Lake, British Columbia, Canada

Great Southern Sky

Milky Way rising high above a fog filled Wollombi Valley with the Watagan mountain range and the city lights of the NSW Central Coast in the background. New South Wales, Australia

Warrumbungles Milkyway Panorama

A sixteen shot panorama of the milky way over the Warrumbungles. The area has little light pollution to disturb astronomical viewing and is home to the Siding Spring observatory which is has more than a $100 million in scientific equipment including 44 telescopes. The largest is the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT), a 3.9-metre equatorially mounted telescope, sits at an altitude of a little over 1,100 m and was ranked in 2009 as the fifth highest-impact of the world's optical telescopes. New South Wales, Australia

Aurora Skyline

This is a shot from 2017 of the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights in Mt Robson Provincial Park. This was the night I took my shots of STEVE to the south over Berg Lake and Mt Robson from the same position (this shot looks north). The red/pink band of forms at around 250 – 500 km altitude from high energy state excited oxygen atoms emitting light at 630 nm. The bottom layer is the more typically seen green aurora that forms between 100 – 250 km altitude by excited oxygen atoms emitting light at 557.7 nano-metres.

Fern Tree Cabin

The warm glow of a fire illuminates an architecturally designed cabin on the side of Mount Wellington as the milky way covers the southern sky above. Fern Tree, Tasmania. Australia

Ness Lake Windy Aurora

A shot on a windblown Ness lake from two weeks ago. I think this has to be the coldest photo shoot I have ever done; it got down to -36C (-33F) and with wind-chill it was below -45C (-49F). The wind picked up significantly when I was out there and I had to abandon the shoot and snowshoe home at about 1 AM. Trudging back alone the wind seemed to be sandblasting my face, the 500m seemed to feel more like 2km, and quite disconcertingly my eyelids started freezing shut at the edges every time I blinked. A little too cold for this Australian. Let’s just say I was glad to get back to our warm house.

Southern Vista

A view south over the moonlit oyster covered rocks and city lights in North West Bay at low tide. Stars, clouds and a touch of the Aurora Australis dancing in the background. Howden, Tasmania. Australia.