Auroras – What Our Eyes See vs What the Camera SeesI just returned from an incredible trip to Alaska

Auroras – What Our Eyes See vs What the Camera SeesI just returned from an incredible trip to Alaska where the primary goal was to see the Aurora Borealis. Success! I was fortunate enough to see the Northern Lights four different times on the trip, and it was worth every moment spent out in the bitter cold (-34C/-30F on vacation anyone?). However, on the very first night of the trip, our astronomer tour leader was quick to set realistic expectations of what we would see - all those amazing photos we’ve all seen of auroras, that’s not what our eyes see.In situations where there is low illumination, such as standing outside at night looking at auroras, the rod cells in our eyes take over from the cone cells that give us our ability to see fine details. Rod cells have low visual acuity and don’t perceive color. That means when we look up at the night sky, our eyes are very limited in what they can see. Still-photo cameras, good ones at least (unlike anything I have), can take long exposures and vary their shutter width to allow more light in, and with it more color. This ability means cameras can see light and color that our eyes fail to perceive.For example, take a look at the amazing aurora photo with this post. That’s an aurora (yes, there is some post-processing on the photo, but the aurora has not been misrepresented in any way) I saw just outside of Anchorage. I was with a group of 44 people, and the general consensus seemed to be that we could see a green or white cloud, and that it looked like the mountain was being backlit by some light source. Yet the photo reveals something much more spectacular was happening, beyond what our eyes could see. The backlighting in the photo is revealed to be a beautiful green aurora, and the “cloud” we saw is the most concentrated area of light and color.When we later traveled to Fairbanks in central Alaska and drove far away from light pollution, what our eyes saw and what the camera saw were much closer than this, but still also far apart.Please don’t misunderstand, experiencing the aurora in person was amazing and I highly recommend going to look at it with your own eyes if you get a chance. Just be realistic in your expectations of what you will see, and bring a camera along that can take long-exposure photos so you can photograph all the remarkable details that your eyes missed.REPhoto Credit: Dr. Tyler Nordgrenhttp://www.tylernordgren.com/Photo used with permissionReferences: https://www.britannica.com/science/rod-retinal-cell -- source link
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