Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda
Username  

FM Forum Rules
Landscape Posting Guidelines
  

FM Forums | Landscape Photographer | Join Upload & Sell

  

Archive 2015 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range

  
 
JimKied
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


I have just returned from a family vacation to the Tetons and Yellowstone, my first ever trip to these locations. The last night of our stay, June 23rd, my son and I got up at 2 AM to take Milky Way images. We set up on the southern end of Jackson Lake. We wanted to find an angle that would put the Milky Way over the Tetons, but it was too far south and the mountains run south and north of us, so we decided to try to get star reflections in the water.

We have very little experience in PPing milky way images, so please bear that in mind. Our little photo excursion lasted 2 hours and in every image we took there was a green glow. We did not know about the aurora projections for that night. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE DID NOT SEE ANY GREEN GLOW TO OUR EYES. The glow only showed up in our images. We figure that the lighter glow on the horizon is light pollution from the town of Jackson. And my original thought, before we knew about the aurora display, was that the green was light pollution also. Now that we know about the aurora that was taken as far south as Colorado, could this be aurora? Please bear in mind that we are looking SOUTH. I would think that to view an aurora, one would need to look to the north or northwest. I have NEVER seen an aurora, so IDK that much about what to expect or see.

This image is a photo merge of two images. I had cut off part of the teton range (cut Mount Moran off) so I took two images to get the entire range. This caused the more squarish look, which I cropped to a 4x5 ratio. I did do a levels adjustment for just the stars (Kuyper) to make them pop a little more. As I was performing curves and curves midrange adjustments the colors intensified some. I did not enhance the colors via normal vibrance or saturation adjustments.

Taken with the Nikon D610, Rokinon 14mm at f2.8 for 25 seconds and 3200 ISO. Yes, you can see some pebbles under the water at the lower left corner. They were illuminated with lights from a campground bathroom that was about 100 yards behind us. We did not realize that the light would have an effect.

Any comments are welcome. It is how I learn. And to repeat the question, can the green glow be aurora? And is it possible to see aurora when looking to the south? Thanks!






Edited on Jun 25, 2015 at 06:21 AM · View previous versions



Jun 24, 2015 at 09:42 PM
JSecord
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


that green is airglow, which is sort of a similar phenomenon. Charged particles reacting with the earth's atmosphere. Nice image!


Jun 24, 2015 at 10:24 PM
kent1960
Offline

Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Hi Jim, It is very possible that the green is from the aurora. What I have observed from night photography is that the sensor will pick up light that the eyes cant see. Night photography picks up "air glow" and other light pollutants.

One suggestion is to change the color to reflect what you saw. The camera white balance might be off and so something I do is change the temperature towards a more blue tinge to reflect what I see. Just a thought.



Jun 24, 2015 at 10:25 PM
dgdg
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Nice shot Jim.
Airglow does not always yield pleasing results, but this is quite nice.

David



Jun 24, 2015 at 10:26 PM
qc_mountain
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Very nice picture you have done a great job capturing the milky way and the aurora, it is a nice combination and rare . As your question Yes it is the Aurora there were a Severe ( G4 ) Geomagnetic storm on the 22 June true the 23.

A description from N.O.A.A. of a G4 storm is:

Power systems: Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid.

Spacecraft operations: May experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems.

Other systems: Induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic, satellite navigation degraded for hours, low-frequency radio navigation disrupted, and aurora has been seen as low as Alabama and northern California (typically 45° geomagnetic lat.).

Francois



Jun 24, 2015 at 11:09 PM
ckcarr
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Yes,
Check this out...

http://kutv.com/news/local/utah-photographers-catch-rare-glimpse-of-northern-lights

Very nice image also!



Jun 24, 2015 at 11:11 PM
JimFox
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Hey Jim,

That is a cool shot you captured there. And as exciting as it might feel to think the aurora was captured here, I would have to agree with those that say it's just airglow. I am definitely not going to say that I am an airglow expert, but that looks exactly like the airglow I have captured many times in Yellowstone and the Tetons.

Craigs link he posted shows what the aurora was looking like, totally different then the look of what you captured.

When I first came across this airglow in some of my shots, I have to say I was actually relieved to find out that it was airglow and not something wrong with the sensor on my camera....

Jim



Jun 25, 2015 at 01:34 AM
JimKied
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


After looking up airglow, a term I had not heard of before, I agree that it is airglow. Dang! I thought I had gotten aurora! But that is ok. Keep the comments comming!


Jun 25, 2015 at 06:25 AM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


I like this airglow or not. I wanted to do a MW with the 5DS-R Wednesday night. but there were too many clouds. I still don't have a MW shot.


Jun 25, 2015 at 10:39 AM
Chuck Eklund
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


A wonderful image. The illuminated pebbles are great and maybe something I will attempt in the future. Thank you for the idea.

Chuck



Jun 25, 2015 at 12:37 PM
JimKied
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Thanks for all the replies. I've actually revised the image some more. Didn't like the satellite tracks and, although some of you liked the illuminated pebbles, I decided they were more distracting, so I darkened the area. Here is the revised version with some added contrast.







Jun 25, 2015 at 02:20 PM
Fast6
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


The streaks in the airglow, especially as they run perpendicular to the Milky Way, hold a lot of interest for me. Nice work!


Jun 25, 2015 at 03:17 PM
Maritan
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Fantastic shot. I saw this yesterday on my work monitor that's slowly kicking the bucket and wasn't too thrilled.

Looking at it on my home computer made a world of difference.



Jun 25, 2015 at 03:18 PM
JimKied
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Thanks for all the positive comments.


Jun 26, 2015 at 01:38 PM
Shrives
Offline

Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


I love this, great work!

I just started shooting the Milky Way, in love with it now!



Jun 26, 2015 at 01:52 PM
Cheryle Sytsma
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Very nice capture, Jim...
I also like your rework...
glad you posted!

I had never heard of airglow...
(This has been a very informative thread)



Jun 26, 2015 at 04:23 PM
dalite
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Looks like the photo was taken from the Jackson lake dam area. For a panoramic shot of the Tetons and the Snake River you should have gone to the Teton Overlook which is on Hwy 89 and south of Moran.


Jul 01, 2015 at 10:10 PM
Jase1125
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


Very nice image and I like the additional processing you did for the second image.


Jul 04, 2015 at 06:52 AM
JimKied
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Milky Way and Airglow Illuminate the Teton Range


dalite said Looks like the photo was taken from the Jackson lake dam area. For a panoramic shot of the Tetons and the Snake River you should have gone to the Teton Overlook which is on Hwy 89 and south of Moran.


This was actually taken in the Signal Mountain Lodge area. We considered other areas, but we decided we wanted to try to capture reflections in the water. Wasn't sure we would have been able to do that eleswhere. Plus we were staying at Signal Mountain, so it was easier!



Jul 04, 2015 at 11:13 AM





FM Forums | Landscape Photographer | Join Upload & Sell

    
 

You are not logged in. Login or Register

Username       Or Reset password



This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.