As you have no doubt heard by now there was a rather impressive display of the southern lights on Wednesday night (April 30).  The aurora was present right on dark, which conveniently at this time of year is around 6:30pm, so it was seen and photographed by many people all over Tasmania.

Aurora Australis, the southern lights, seen over Mt Nelson from Bellerive on April 30 2014

A funny thing happened to me while I was shooting this one. Sitting by my tripod as I was shooting, my phone rang, and it turned out to be Helen Shield’s evenings program on the 936 ABC Hobart, who had seen my tweet that the aurora was on display! So to my surprise I was sitting there in Bellerive giving a live from the field account of the aurora!

April 2014 Aurora Australis: Close to midnight at Seven Mile Beach these lovely little beams appeared.

The aurora was fairly stable all night, just a steady – but strong, glow above the southern horizon. It was clearly visible to the eye, although the green colour is best seen away from city lights. I moved from Bellerive, to Mt Nelson, and then finally settled at my old haunt (for auroras that is!) at Seven Mile Beach. Almost right on cue, as I composed my shot and settled in the most active part of the night occurred, all seen best in this timelapse video. The video consists of 173 frames, 15 seconds of exposure each and covering close to an hour of real time, from 11:10 to 12:08.

Aurora Australis Seven Mile Beach April 30 2014 from Luke O’Brien on Vimeo.