SKY PHENOMENA

I have always had a fascination with astronomical and related sky phenomena.  And this spring within the space of five weeks I was able to witness two rare and awe-inspiring events, a total solar eclipse and a dazzling display of aurora borealis.  Here are a few images of each that I captured with my cameras.

First, I traveled, along with friends, to Indianapolis to photograph the solar eclipse that occurred on April 8.  We were fortunate that the weather turned out to be favorable, with only a slight haze in the sky where we had positioned ourselves to witness the event.Here is series of photos showing the progression of the eclipse:

I shot all but the last two photos with the solar filter on my camera.  I took the filter off once totality was close and fortunately got the "diamond ring" shot, as well as the final corona image.

Then, less than five weeks later, a confluence of sunspots resulted in the most dramatic display of northern lights in 20 years.  In the middle of the night on May 11, I found myself awake and got up and drove to a local park to witness the event.  I only had my iPhone, which did a decent job of capturing the show.  Here re a couple of shots that I took looking almost directly overhead.

 

These two shots were taken of the same portion of the sky only seconds apart, indicating how rapidly the display was changing.

One interesting note is that with my eyes the display had little color, but my iPhone camera picked up dramatically the aurora's different colors.

JOHN