Tag Archives: lightning

Sprites, Gravity Waves, Airglow and Aurora

 

 

 

 

 

On August 20th, 2014 I timelapsed a storm over central South Dakota with multiple cameras. I left for Wyoming without looking at most of the frames. I saw a post by Tom Warner about Sprites he caught on the same storm. Sprites are large scale electrical discharges that occur high above clouds.

When I got back I went through the frames and found 7 with Sprites in them. I didn’t post 2 of them because they are very faint. The Sprites are only 1 frame each, so they will be a quick flash of red near the right side above the storm. The green Airglow is rippled by Gravity Waves, (gravity waves are not the same as gravitational waves) some faint Aurora moves in towards the end of the sequences, on the right side before the clouds cover it up. Thanks to Tom Warner and Dr. Walter Lyons for helping me identify Gravity Waves in my shots. Dr. Lyons also shared a link that will help identify which storms may have Sprites. Look for a large red cross on the map.

See the timelapse of the storm below, and more images in the gallery.

Sprites, Gravity Waves and Airglow from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

Music By Simon Wilkinson

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The Sprites are the red discharges above the storm on the right side. The gravity waves are the ripples you see in the airglow.

Sprite with Airglow and Gravity Waves over South Dakota
Sprite with Airglow and Gravity Waves over South Dakota

 

Sprite with Airglow and Gravity Waves over South Dakota
Sprite with Airglow and Gravity Waves over South Dakota

 

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Gallery of Sprites and Gravity Waves – Click to enlarge.

 

 

Huelux

 

Storm over Farm time lapse frame 4K
Storm over Farm

 

Huelux from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

Huelux is also on Youtube below, in 4K Ultra HD resolution.



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I shot Huelux from April-November 2013 in South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah. The weather in 2013 made it difficult for me to get some of the shots I wanted. There were many times I planned to shoot the Milky Way or Aurora, and the clouds would roll in. But that also allowed me to get more night storm timelapse than I have any other year. I was in Utah for 6 nights, it was clear only one night, it was also 95F at midnight that night. So I couldn’t shoot as high of an ISO as I wanted because of noise, but I still pulled off a few good shots in Zion Canyon.The weather was much the same while I was in Wyoming, it was cloudy 2/3 of the nights I was there. But I did get some of my best Milky Way shots of the year in Wyoming, see 1:45-2:05 in the video. The clouds did make for some good sunrise and sunset shots.

On the Milky Way shots you will see a lot of slow and fast moving satellites, a few meteors and planes. The meteors are hard to see in timelapse, but you may see a quick flash because they only last one frame. If you see a light moving across the sky, it is either an airplane or satellite, not a meteor.

Some of the Aurora I shot were unexpected with no advanced notice. Several nights I was setting up Milky Way shots, when I noticed the glow in the sky to the north. In one case an hour before I got any Aurora notification on my phone. The storm shot at 2:57 has Aurora behind it, which was quickly covered up by the storm. The low Aurora on the horizon were often yellow, while closer (higher in the sky) Aurora were green. If I adjusted the yellow Aurora on the horizon green, it threw the rest of the colors way off.

Aurora behind a buidling storm. Frame from Huelux timelapse
Aurora behind a building storm.

I came up with the title Huelux, which comes from hue (a color property), and lux which is latin for light. Some of the Aurora and Milky Way were difficult to color correct, so I spent a lot of time with the hue settings, white balance, etc. during the month and a half edit.

The end credit backgrounds are 10 second timelapse exposures of Andromeda Galaxy and Orion shot with a 200mm lens on an Ioptron Skytracker. You will see some satellites moving through the sequences.

Photography and Editing – Randy Halverson
Production Assistant – River Halverson
Music by Peter Nanasi – peternanasi.com
Buy the soundtrack to Huelux here.

Dakotalapse opening title – Luke Arens

Camera Gear Used

2 Canon 5D Mark III’s
1 Canon 6D

Lenses
Nikon 14-24 with Novoflex adapter
Rokinon 25 and 35
Canon 16-35
Zeiss 21
Sigma 15mm Fisheye
Canon 200mm
Canon 70-300

Available in 4K Ultra HD for licensing, in 10 and 35 minute features.

Contact for licensing footage, shooting rates or anything else.
Randy Halverson
dakotalapse@gmail.com

Follow:
Facebook facebook.com/dakotalapse
Twitter twitter.com/dakotalapse

Still Photos Below, click show picture list to enlarge.

 

 

Meteor, Lightning and the Milky Way

 

 

 

While editing timelapse I shot July 2012, I noticed a meteor in a frame. I caught it on 2 Canon 5D Mark III cameras. Last July, I posted a photo of the lightning and Milky Way, but missed the meteor. Phil Plait wrote about that photo last July.

Meteor with Canon 14mm on 5D Mark III Cropped from 14mm
Meteor with Canon 14mm on 5D Mark III Cropped from 14mm

I also caught it on a second camera, with a 25mm Zeiss F2.0 lens.

Meteor, Lightning and the Milky Way with Zeiss 25mm F2.0
Meteor, Lightning and the Milky Way with Zeiss 25mm F2.0

 

Print or Gallery Wrap, is available of the second photo here.

I borrowed both of the lenses from Borrowlenses.com, who is also a sponsor for my next timelapse video, that will be coming out this winter.