A couple of days ago Hobartians were treated to a truly magical display of the southern lights over Hobart. The storm hit early in the day, with a super charged solar wind buffeting the earth.

I screenshotted the solar wind details, as it was all bigger than I’d seen before – the solar wind was hitting at over 1000km/second, and the Bt was at 88! I wrote about what these numbers mean in some more detail in this previous post for those interested.

So what happened next?

As it got dark, the numbers still looked super strong so I headed out close to home this time, to photograph the Southern lights over Hobart with the iconic Tasman bridge and kunanyi/Mt Wellington as part of the scene.

Normally I head to dark skies to capture the full glory of the aurora, but for this evening, I thought it a pretty good chance the aurora might very well outshine even the city lights. I have had the great fortune of seeing many auroras (aurorae?) over the years, in many varied and remote locations, so in my opinion it was time for an iconic Southern lights over Hobart shoot!

Photographing the southern lights over Hobart

Shooting in the city certainly created a different set of camera settings for this type of photography. Normally (in dark sky areas away from city lights) I’m increasing the ISO and going for a relatively long shutter speed. With the brightly lit bridge right in front of me however I kept the ISO right down, as low as 200 for most of the evening in fact. The shutter speed was very short too, mostly between 4 to 8 seconds.

2026 could very well see the end of this round of solar maximum, and if this display is anything to go by, its planning on going out with a bang! Fingers crossed for a few great shows as we head into the darker nights of autumn and winter 🙂