Steve over Ness Lake
Steve made a spectacular appearance running east/west right above Ness Lake this week. While related to the Aurora Borealis (or Northen Lights) ‘Steve’ is a discrete optical phenomenon that was only formally discovered in 2017 by aurora watchers from Alberta. It was subsequently determined to be caused by a 25 km wide ribbon of hot gasses at an altitude of 300 km, temperature of 3000 °C and flowing at a speed of 6 km/s (compared to 10 m/s outside the ribbon). The name "Steve" was taken from Over the Hedge, an animated comedy movie of 2006, in which its characters chose that name for something unknown. "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement" was suggested as a backronym of Steve which has since been adopted by the team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center studying Steve.
The shot shows Steve on the right (light pink) with a picket fence aurora (green) on the left. There is an unknown interaction between the atmosphere and Steve that often causes the picket fence aurora along the side of it. The shot was taken on a Canon 6D II with a Samyang 14mm 2.8 at f2.8, ISO 3200, and a 13s exposure time. Its looking towards a small island standing on a still frozen Ness Lake in Northern British Columbia, Canada.
If you would like to learn a little bit more about my background in photography, and see another 'Steve' shot you can read the interview @photofeed did with me here
Robert Downie
Love Life, Love Photography
All images in this post were taken by and remain the Copyright of Robert Downie - http://www.robertdowniephotography.com
beautiful, upvoted
Wow! Incredible phenomenon and photo! Beautiful and eerie at the same time.
Thanks
Absolutely beautiful. ..
Wonderful shot
Thanks
Indeed
So professional! Truly love it 😀
Thanks!
You and Steve seem to have a special relationship. I think he likes you as his personal photographer ;)
Ha. Its more of a one way communication between us so perhaps I am more like paparazzi.
Steve looks like a unicorn horn. Amazing shot!
Thanks! He does a bit here.
What's your take on the Samyang lens? I'd be weary of buying cheap lenses - but I've heard good things.
Awesome shot btw! Wish I was there with you...
Samyang make great manual lenses. I would not hesitate to get one. They have historically had some quality control issues so its good to try it if your buying second hand.
Most camera rental spots don't rent them out so perhaps if I see one in the wild I'll give it a go! Have a good weekend.
They don’t rent them out because you could probably buy one for the price of a rental ;-)
LOL. As a side note - sometimes I'm afraid to rent new gear as it'll be something I wish I had. But if I rent something enough times I know it's something I should invest in.
Wow, awesome shot. One day I'll see them. Or the Southern Lights. Or both.
You should try and seem them once in your life. I have seen both and unless you go to Antarctica in the winter (which is a 6 month trip) the Northern Lights are more spectacular to the naked eye as you can get to much higher latitudes quite easily in the North.
Hmm, spending 6 months on boats, in the cold is not really my cup of tea. I was thinking a night or two in Tassie or NZ. :)
Good to know the Northern Lights are better. I'll keep that in mind.
I have seen the lights from Tassie. The difference is your looking at lights that are a long way away on the horizon as your only 42" South. So you need quite a large solar storm, which makes it hard to plan trips as events that large are rare. And then likely you will only see in B&W with your eyes as it will be quite faint. Your cones see in colour but need more light and when its faint it activates your rods (night vision) which only see in B&W. You can still get some spectacular colour photos however using long exposures if you have the right gear. But it is very rare to see a lot of color with naked eye in the lights in Tassie or NZ. In contrast in the North you can get easily to 60-70 deg North in Scandinavia/Iceland/Greenland/Canada/Alaska. Which means you can actually get underneath the Aurora and its bright enough to see in full colour and also can cover the sky above you rather than just being on the horizon. There is no major land mass in the South between 55 and 65 deg south, just a few tiny islands. The southern tip of South America goes the furthermost to the south however its on the wrong side of the magnetic pole (which the aurora centers around as its a magnetic phenomenon) which is displaced from the South pole North towards Australia and NZ. Same reason you never see Aurora shots from the north of Japan as the magnetic North pole is South of the physical North pole in the direction of Canada. Hope that helps.
Wow! What a detailed response. Thank you!
This is one of my bucket list items (as I'm sure it is for MANY!!!) so I'm glad to read all these hints!!! :)
did you travel on a boat for 6 months to Antartica???
Ha. No I have not. It is not that it takes 6 months on a boat to get there. It's just that you cant go in summer as the midnight sun is there and it never gets dark enough to see an aurora. Which means you need to get a boat down in autumn. And if you don't leave by the end of autumn the ice is so thick that you have to winter over in Antarctica at one of the stations until the late spring ice melt and the ships can get back in.
Ohhhhhh :)
I see! Hahaha
Woah. Stevie deserves a resteem.
Thanks ! As Australians we like to call him Stevo
Outstanding photo @intredpidphotos!!
I wondered about the 'Steve' name :-)
Even more fantastic the @photofeed post!!
I'd missed seeing this one, thank you for
putting the link here, Wow!!!
Thanks. Hope you found the interview worth reading !