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.