Ben Levis Photography

Well its been over twenty years since I've seen the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) and they certainly did not disappoint last night!

The first of six incoming coronal mass ejections slammed into Earth's magnetic field just after midnight, sparking a G5 Extreme Geomagnetic Storm, the strongest storm in almost twenty years. I was treated to near clear skies for the duration of natures finest lightshow until just before sun-up where I noted the Zodiacal light and the aurora were intermingling in the east.

Interestingly the 'light pollution' from the aurora was so intense that it easily overwhelmed the milky way (which is a sight itself under dark skies!)

To see the aurora and photograph its presence taking up significant portions of the sky was quite a treat. Streamers and a red glow were easily visible to the naked eye up to 40deg in elevation from the horizon with photographs revealing the display going up to near the zenith.

All shot with a Fujifilm GFX100S with a GF20-35mm f4.0 wide open at 20mm, ISO 6400 and 25sec exposures.

The zodiacal light was an 8min exposure with the same setup at ISO 160.