I was preparing for observations of comet (17P/Holmes) when auroras started to appear. They came in two "waves". The first wave occured when the sky was still partly clouded, and the latter when the sky was clear. It was my first observations of auroras this fall.

Photo details: Canon Digital Rebel XT, 18-55 mm lens, ISO: 800, 15-20 s exposures.

Beautiful night out - a full moon, no wind and frost in the air... and auroras of course. Nothing too spectacular but a few nice displays managed to force their way through the moonlight.

Photo details: Nikon D80 with Sigma 20mm lens. 8s exposure at f/2.0, iso400.

I looked out the window and noticed an odd set of clouds. Turns out they were in fact the Northern Lights. I grabbed my tripod and stood on a rocky outcropping 50 m away from the apartment. I usually walk much further out to town to catch shots in the northern sky but the curtains were extremely bright (even with the moon and the city lights!). These shots were captured facing South. All shots were captured at ISO-1600 (the wind was VERY strong and I wanted to minimize exposure time because of this variable) and thus most were shot at f4.0 for about 2-3 seconds. A few shots utilized smaller apertures.

Cloudy and windy most of the time. But between clouds there was something what I was looking for: bright auroras! And full moon was illustrating clouds really nice in these shoots.

Photo details: Canon 350D, 400 ASA, 20-30 s exp.