The last two nights will be remembered as the one that got away – in terms of photographing the Aurora in Tasmania that is…

Aurora Australis “Southern Lights” Hobart Feb 20 2014 – The one that got away 🙁

For the past two days aurora alerts have been coming thick and fast, but mostly during daylight hours, and when night came thick cloud prevented viewing the lights across most of Tasmania. Last night at around 9:30 however there was a mostly clear sky so I bolted over to Bellerive to try my luck. I have been keen to photograph an aurora from here, to include the city lights of Hobart. Looks like I’ll have to keep trying…

Aurora australis, Tasmania. Feb 20 2014 2203. Going, going…

Photographing the Aurora in Tasmania

A lot of people ask me when the best time to photograph the aurora in Tasmania is. I usually say winter, from the simple fact that the nights are so long. At the height of winter (in fact as soon as daylight savings ends in early April) the nights are long and dark here in Hobart. During the summer, it isn’t astronomically dark until around 9:30~10:00 at the moment (late February), but more like 11:00 in the height of the summer. That means the window of opportunity for photographing an aurora in Tasmania in summer is very short.

Gone… Thick cloud ruined the aurora in Tasmania, Feb 20 2014

Despite the run of bad luck lately, there has been a fair bit of activity on the sun in the past few days so a chance to make amends may not be too far away… watch this space 🙂