Oklahoma Aurora!

These shots were taken during the early morning hours of October 29th. In Oklahoma! While I knew the chance of seeing something was there... I was surprised by the intensity of the display once it started. I was on a nighttime photo journey in Kingfisher county when the display started about 3 am. Who says there's something wrong with roaming around in the middle of the night?

For more information on the event go to www.spaceweather.com

How I got what I got....

The pictures that I have on my site were a few of 17 that I shot that night.
They were all within a 15 minute period near the peak of the display.

I use a nikon N80 and had on a nikon 20 mm 2.8 lens. I was worried
about the lens selection at the time because it seemed that there was a lot
of extra room at the top of the picture. But, I decided to use the wide
field and bring in the foreground....especially when I could see the
reflection off of the pond.

The film I used was fuji 800 speed superia. I had intended to catch this
on slide film....but in my hurry to get out the door that evening....grabbed
only print film. Never having shot such an event before, I had no clue at
all on what I should do for exposure times. I started at 10 seconds and
stepped up 10 seconds each exposure until I reached about a minute
and a half and then stepped back down. My best pictures were
estimated at about 50 second exposures. A northbound car every
once in awhile was responsible for painting the light on the house.

While I am extremely surprised... I am also extremely proud of the fact
that nothing was done to the pictures to enhance the colors. The long
exposure times did enhance them of course... but no other retouching
was done.