AstroLandscapes #45 (The Aurora Files) - The High Road

[FenlandPaul]

After the insane substorm in AstroLandscapes #44 had died down, we drove to another location we’d scouted earlier in the day, atop the high pass on the way to the little fishing-village-on-an-island of Husøy. This overlooked one of the fjords and had a stunning mountain backdrop.

Compared to the earlier madness, the auroral patterns for the rest of the night were much more subtle, with beautiful colours on camera and some elegant dancing pillars, but none of the look-at-me shoutiness of earlier on the night. Yet it remained mesmerising; it was, in fact, exactly all I’d dared to expect coming here in the first place.

The various compositions I’d planned over the mountains generally didn’t work out, as the auroral arcs never lined up in the way I’d hoped. But I loved the way these fluttering pillars seemed to mimic the horizon line and the lovely defined colours in this picture, which I’ve called “The High Road”.  It was taken with a Canon 6D and a Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens. The foreground was a 30s exposure at f/4 and ISO3200. The sky was a 3.2s exposure at ISO6400 and f/2.8, edited and blended in LR and PS.