Aurora Australis (5)

This is a spectacular auroral display which I observed from Dunedin, New Zealand in the late 1980s. Dunedin is 46 degrees south so we do get some spectacular displays.

The trick with photographing the aurora is to get the exposure right. Its a lot easier when the aurora is as bright as this one but you must be careful not to overexpose and lose the colour. I used fast film for this so the grain is a bit more obvious. The film was Kodak VR 1000 print film which was useful for this sort of thing if you don't want to resort to more exotic techniques. I have also used Fujichrome P1600D professional slide film and push processed it up to 4800 asa with some success.

While this image looks very similar to the original print I did cheat slightly by unsharp masking the electronic version in Photoshop which made the stars and sharper features stand out better.