In awe of our auroras

'The camera is better than your eyes at seeing stuff ... It's like wearing X-ray specs, or...
'The camera is better than your eyes at seeing stuff ... It's like wearing X-ray specs, or something, to see things in this amazing detail.' Photos by Ian Griffin.

Ian Griffin.
Ian Griffin.

Photographing the night sky takes up much of Otago Museum director Ian Griffin's spare time, and since moving to Dunedin, Dr Griffin has become an aurora aficionado. Carla Green reports.

Ian Griffin has been an astronomer for many years, but his aurora addiction is a more recent acquisition.

Soon after he moved to Dunedin from England, he and his son went for a walk, he said.

''It was a Saturday evening, the first of June, 2013, and we were walking and it was dark, and there was this green thing in the sky, and I thought, 'Woah! That's an aurora!''' he said.

''That was the first time I'd seen it.''

Since then, Dr Griffin has photographed the aurora on more than 50 occasions.

''It's a bit like stamp collecting, actually. I worry about it sometimes,'' he said.

Before moving to Dunedin to become director of the Otago Museum, Dr Griffin had a series of jobs relating to science engagement.

That had meant doing many different things over the years, and Dr Griffin has enjoyed varying degrees of success in bringing excitement about science to lay people.

''But it seems, with the aurora thing, we've hit a sweet spot somewhere,'' he said.

And it seems to be quite a big one.

Dr Griffin has been involved in organising a series of talks about the aurora - one in Invercargill last month, and two in Dunedin next week.

Initially, only one talk was planned in Dunedin.

''We arranged a talk that was originally going to be at the museum,'' Dr Griffin said.

''And I was staggered that we had 1000 people who said [on Facebook] they were going to show up.''

Organisers decided to put up registration for the event online - it is free - and 200 people registered in one hour.

''So we moved the event from a museum to one of the rooms in the stadium, and now we've got 800 people signed up [for the two talks],'' Dr Griffin said.

''Getting 800 people in Dunedin to a talk on the aurora, I mean, let's face it, for people who aren't rock stars, it's pretty exciting.''

 

The aurora community

''In the aurora community,'' Dr Griffin began, and then interrupted himself.

''I don't know if you can really talk about an 'aurora community','' he said, But with a 5000-person Facebook group devoted just to the Aurora Australis - the southern pole's aurora - perhaps, you can.

After Dr Griffin first saw the aurora in 2013, he also became part of ''the aurora community'', which seems to communicate largely via social media.

He, too, is active on social media, particularly Twitter where he has more than 2000 followers.

Alongside tweets about his fitness regime and culinary pursuits, Dr Griffin's Twitter feed is home to hundreds of photos of the night sky, including many aurora pictures and information about future auroras.

''I find it a useful tool for communicating with people,'' he said.

''Oftentimes, there are barriers between scientists doing interesting stuff and research, so I use it to talk about what I'm doing and show what pictures I'm taking.''

He and photographer Paul Le Comte, who is also on next week's aurora panel in Dunedin, have started using a separate Twitter account to post exclusively about the aurora.

Members of the Aurora Australis Facebook group use it for posting pictures, but most of the time they discuss when and where an aurora will be visible.

''It's more of an art than a science,'' Dr Griffin said.

''If you were to come to me and say, `Ian, is there going to be an aurora tonight outside my house?', I actually couldn't tell you.''

The best way of knowing if there's an aurora on any given night, he continued, ''is actually to go out and look''.

 

The big debate

Dr Griffin uses the word ''debate'' quite liberally - seven times, during one 30-minute interview.

There are many things Dr Griffin considers worthy of debate, but in the context of auroras, the most noteworthy is the question of how to use a camera.

''The way I know if there's a really good aurora going on is you go out, set your camera up on a tripod, point it due south, open the shutter up for 30 seconds,'' he said.

''Normally, if you can see a faint little band, your camera will bring out a lot more.''

Except when auroras were exceptionally bright, camera lenses were capable of picking up quite a bit more of the aurora than the human eye, he said.

But not everyone thought aurora photographers should use their cameras to ''see'' anything more than what was visible with the human eye, Dr Griffin said. Hence, the debate.

Dr Griffin sits firmly on one side of it.

''I sit on the side of the count where I want to see as much detail as possible, because I think it's fascinating,'' he said.

His opinion was shaped, in part, by working on public outreach for the Hubble Space Telescope project.

''All of the Hubble pictures - which are these beautiful colour images - all of them are actually taken through filters.''

''The camera is better than your eyes at seeing stuff,'' he said.

''It's like wearing X-ray specs, or something, to see things in this amazing detail.''

Dr Griffin is uncannily good at describing night-time sky-gazing scenes. To hear him describe one is to want to have been there.

''To me, it is a bit like fishing,'' he said.

''You sit there and listen, and hear the animals doing their thing, and out at Hoopers Inlet, you can hear the waves crashing into Allans Beach, which is several miles away. And then, you can look at the sky, and it's dark, and see the stars reflecting off the water. And then an aurora breaks out. And sometimes it's just subtle and only lasts a few minutes. And it's one of the most enticing scenes there is.''

And enticing people to go and see the aurora was the point of the talks, he said.

He wants to share his aurora addiction.

carla.green@odt.co.nz

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement