Great Southern Lights

in Photography Lovers3 years ago (edited)

The Aurora Australis or Southern Lights dances over the Great Lake of Tasmania's Central Plateau with individual beams or curtains visible. It surprises me how many people don't realise that there are southern lights, and just think of the Northern Lights (aka Aurora Borealis) whenever they see an Aurora photo. I have had the pleasure of seeing both; and if you ever get the chance I highly recommend taking it. Not something you will ever forget.

GreatSouthernLand.jpg

For proof this is actually looking south, in the second shot below you you can see both of the Magellanic Clouds (or Nubeculae Magellani) in the upper middle section of the photo above the milky way. They are two irregular dwarf galaxies that are visible to the naked eye in very dark places in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. The galaxies orbit the Milky Way galaxy but are outside of the main axis. Both show signs of a bar structure, and are sometimes classified as the Magellanic spiral galaxies. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is approximately 163,000 light-years away while the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), to the right of the large, is approximately 206,000 light years away

MilkyAurora.jpg

The Aurora phenomenon is initiated by electrically-charged electrons and protons accelerating down the Earth's magnetic field lines and colliding with neutral atoms in the upper atmosphere. 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.

AuroraAustralisTwo.jpg

The Central Plateau of Tasmania resides at an elevation of 1,036 m (3,398 feet) which provides clear sky's looking south to the pole. Tasmania is an island state in the southern ocean the south of mainland Australia.

AuroraAustralis.jpg

For those interested these photos were taken with a manual focus Samyang 24mm f/1.4 using a Canon EOS 6D, 30s exposure time, and ISO 2500. The exception being the wider shot which was shot with a Samyang 14mm f/2.8, 30sec exposure time, and ISO pushed up to 6400 to compensate for the narrower aperture.

If you would like to learn a little bit more about my background in photography you can read the interview @photofeed did with me here.

Robert Downie
Love Life, Love Photography

All images in this post were taken by and remain the Copyright of Robert Downie - http://www.robertdowniephotography.com

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It surprises me how many people don't realise that there are southern lights, and just think of the Northern Lights (aka Aurora Borealis) whenever they see an Aurora photo. I have had the pleasure of seeing both; and if you ever get the chance I highly recommend taking it. Not something you will ever forget.

I have not seen either of them in real life (only on photos and on videos), but both of them are beautiful.

Yep; they are both very special.

On my bucket list. Thank you for sharing!

Hope you make it before the bucket goes over.

Great work, I've seen the Aurora Borealis but haven't had the chance to see Aurora Australis as yet, it's on my list :-)

No doubt it's a long list ; but I do hope you make it . At least Aurora Australis has the initials AA so should be at the top of the list if you do it alphabetically.

Beautiful pics 🌌👌!! @vcclothing we need to check to visit the southern lights 😊

Amazing photos! It's definitely on the list!

These are absolutely incredible shots. Holy smokes. Thanks for sharing!

Those pinks :O

I remember wanting to go and see at least the southern ones but at this stage (and moreso now than ever) I'm thinking it's a thing that we're probably never going to get around to x_x

So yay and thank you for good photos (which I know isn't the same as being there but will have to do me XD)

Southern lights are very hard to see from NZ or Tasmania as they are so far north so you need a big solar storm. Antarctica would be the place to see them overhead. The Northern lights are much easier to see because there is a lot more accessible land closer to the north pole then there is the south (ie Greenland/Iceland/Canada/Northern Europe)

This is awesome! I have always wanted to see this phenomenon first hand. Thanks for sharing your vivid photo that as if I was able to go there. 😁

Thanks for taking the time to have a look ;-)

Simply amazing, I'd love to get to see this someday!

Hope you make it to see them