Chinese Rocket Re-entry

Why i was out shooting that night

The Aurora Borealis had come out to play. It was relatively early and the skies around Calgary were clear, so when I left the house at 9:30pm I told my wife that I would likely be back shortly as I didn’t have to go very far to see the lights. I drove out to a spot just west of the Springbank Airport and fired off a few decent shots of the lights. They weren’t great, but still ok, and it felt worthwhile to be out. There was a neat halo around the moon and a pretty nice aural arch, so I fired off a panoramic set of images encompassing all of that. I liked the result form that.

Nothing really changed in the Aurora profile over the next little while, so I made my way to the Jumping Pound Road overpass to shoot some tail lights on the Trans-Canada highway along with the Aurora to the North with a degree of success.

So at that point of the night (10:30ish), I had decided to head home. I hopped in the car and started toward the freeway. A vehicle was approaching from behind, and I hadn’t gotten up to speed yet, so I pulled off on the highway approach and waited till he passed. While stopped, I took a look at the Aurora oval again and it seemed to be increasing in strength. I took a look at my map app and noticed I wasn’t too far from a little rural road with a creek crossing. I decided to spend a little more time out shooting.

tHAT MOMENT

I was pleasantly surprised to see that is was a cool steel structure bridge with a fairly wide creek and some farmhouses around. The foreground for these shots would be great! There was another vehicle there, and as a night photographer you tend to be really cautious about others out in the night around you. I drove to the other side of the bridge and parked. I pulled out my gear and set up as another night photographer, Mike was walking across. We introduced ourselves to each other while we shot the Aurora. Mike went down to the creeks edge, while I stayed up on the bridge. We chatted back and forth about nothing really.

Just like the last location, the Northern Lights were nice but nothing to get too excited about. Until…

I spotted the fireball. I might have said something to the effect of ‘What the **** is that!!’, among more that I probably can’t remember or repeat here. Well in that moment, my camera is pointing the exact wrong direction and in the middle of an exposure. I figure whatever it was was going to go out right away and I wouldn’t have time to reset my camera. But it doesn’t go away. So I grab my camera and tripod, spin them around set them down, shut the camera on and off to stop the current exposure, and captured the second photo second photo, which I think conveys the excitement of the moment. The 2 bright lights in the center is the fireball(s), double exposed as I reset the camera in place. I still believe I have only moments to capture this thing so without composing, refocusing or adjusting anything, I just click the cable release and fire.

The Fireball

Only it really wasn’t a single fireball, it was many fireballs. I was lucky. The settings I had in the camera turned out to be perfect for this shot. I’m not sure I’d have changed anything if I knew this was going to happen. Here are the tech specs as fired.

Canon 5Dmk3
Canon 16-35 f/2.8 II
Vanguard tripod and ball head
Canon remote cable release
10 second exposure
ISO 1600
F 4.0 - closed the aperture a bit to gain depth of field in foreground for the aurora images (the bridge)
16mm focal length
Tungsten white balance to lessen the orange city light reflections
Post processing included noise reduction and increasing contrast.

So the best part of the event was I got to enjoy the show with my own two eyes. I had no control or time to fiddle with the camera, so as long as it was pointed generally at the crazy streaking lights and I pressed the remote shutter, I got to revel in the incredible sight! I didn’t have a clue what it was, but since it wasn’t coming toward the ground, I figured it wasn’t an airplane crash, so I enjoyed the moment. The images (including the one where I spun the camera around) represent almost a minute of time and a length of over 1000 miles (from online sources). It’s no wonder so many people saw this!

The first four shots below are the images as taken, the next four are the same shots, just cropped in to show the details. You can click on them to enlarge them. The straight line of white dots in the first two images is simply an airplane passing overhead. Have to wonder what their view was from the pilots chair!?

I feel very fortunate to have captured these images, AND for having such a positive response to the shots all around the world. I did 17 interviews the day after, including 3 TV segments and a live radio interview. You can simply google my name to see most of the interviews online if you are interested.

then Someone turned on the lights

I posted the image up onto my twitter account (@Neil_Zee), and figured out within a minute that this was going to be a crazy night online here at Neil Zeller Photography. In the moments after I posted it to the internet, the aurora started to get really active, so I pointed the camera, locked the shutter and started answering requests. I was committed to staying out at this point now though, but it wasn’t more than 45 minutes later that a cloud bank rolled in and ended the night for me. I arrived home around 12:30am and continued answering emails and media requests. I did sleep for an hour at one point, but from then on, it was a straight go of chatting with the world about these photos for the entire day.

I am humbled and very glad I was the one who got these, I enjoyed my crazy 15 minutes of fame. Everyone was so nice and I had a truly top five day!

Here’s how to get ahold of me for information, purchase, licensing or usage: My Website, on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and of course by email at me (at) neilzellerphotography (dot) com.