Part II of my shots from the mega aurora of May 2024 is actually part I – these are some of the images I captured prior to dawn on the morning of May 11th up in Smithton.

It was the last day of my annual autumn Tarkine photography workshop and for some reason I woke up prior to 4:00am and as you do these days, I had a look at my phone… to find the aurora was going right off! So I quickly roused the crew and we headed out to the back of our accommodation for the show…

The “fireball” aurora

A lot of what we could see was behind some dark grey clouds and the mind boggles at what we would have captured if the skies were completely clear. Even with the cloud the aurora was extraordinarily bright, with pink visible to the eye and images that in camera ended up looking like a fireball!

As I mentioned in my previous post on this aurora, the Bz dropped to ridiculous lows during this event. When I awoke it was as low as -45 in fact, so heading out the door I was already expecting the unexpected but still this display was really quite incredible.

As dawn got closer photography got a little more complicated as the light changed, but the aurora kept on going. It went all day in fact, and put on another gigantic display again that evening. What a way to finish a trip!