Airglowy night

30.8.2021, Pyhäranta

I had been thinking about this photo already many time, only taking it had been postponed many times for whatever reason. I had framed the photo in my mind now I only would need my husband to the rock and my camera on the tripod. But things don't always go as planned..

When I had walked down to the quarry, I noticed that the place where I was about to set my tripod up, was flooded. The pond was not very deep, but my shoes would get wet, if I would stumble. So I have to remember that it is there! (so...) I had to take a little bit different path and to jump from a rock to rock, but I was able to get about there where I wanted to set my camera. Meanwhile my model had positioned himself on the rock. When I was inspecting first test shoot, I noticed in the photo, that there was some cloud veils in the sky even though it was supposed to be a perfectly clear night.

But wait a minute! That cloud veil is striped in a strange way. After couple of shots, I was able to see wave -like patterns on the display of the camera. Damn! Those are not clouds, but...I shouted, "oh my god, we might have airglow here", and my husband replied to me "take quickly couple of shots more in the middle of the quarry".

Then I took a step sideways, and then "splash!". I remembered the existence of the pond only when I had stepped into it, but I didn't let it interfere me. (luckily I had spare sock in the car...) airglow was visible in southeast until moon rise. I could see in the photos, that there was also some airglow in the west. This time I was very lucky, at least once I had a stunning scene where to shoot the airglow.

After the photo session, we remained for a while at the site to drink some coffee and to enjoy the silence and absolutely fantastic autumn night sky.