My Saturday night was spent being completely blown away by the Aurora Australis dancing over Lake Tekapo. We hiked up to this beautiful spot overlooking the lake in the afternoon. It was well worth fighting through the matagouri shrubs and a freezing river crossing. Totally unaware the Aurora forecast was high, this was a welcome surprise and the highlight of the weekend. Having never seen the Aurora before this was such a buzz! What a million dollar view! No better motivation to get outdoors than this! These photos are straight from the camera with no colour tweaks.
Aurora Australis over Lake Tekapo, New Zealand. April 22nd 2017.
Camping with a view. Lake Tekapo, New Zealand. April 22nd 2017.
What I had never realised before was the colour we see in the photos is not actually seen by the naked eye. What we saw in real time was actually more of a white haze. You could see the vertical streaks and after time faint colour could be spotted. I did a bit of research and it turns out our eyes are just not built to detect all the colours within an Aurora. At night our eyes use a different part of the eye to detect faint light and will detect this in black, white and shades of grey. Cameras do not have this limitation and can therefore pick up the wider range of colours. Depending on the strength of the Aurora some people can see hints of colour without a camera.
Comparison of what we see and what the camera captures.