OxnopFlyer

6 hours ago, Son of Anarchy said:

According to VTS Oriana is due to sail on 16 August.  Destination port is vaguely stated as World.

 

Attending a family wedding, otherwise I would have popped along on me bike to see her off.

:

 Thanks for the info SoA

 Sounds like it might get a bit busy. I've got to battle my way to Ventura at Ocean Terminal just as Oriana is leaving. Thankfully I'm coming from Yorkshire so will try to miss out the M271 and dive straight into town from the M3. That is as long as road closures aren't in force. 

I hope I get a final glimpse of her when I get there. Wish me luck.

OxnopFlyer

2 minutes ago, P-L-B said:

Thanks for the information.

 

Yes, a very good piece of kit you have there with useful manual adjustments which I am sure helped in getting those low light shots.

 

We did a Northern lights cruise last November on Aurora which we thoroughly enjoyed but on that occasion we didn’t see much activity from the ship but we did experienced a fantastic show during an independently ‘Hunting The Northern Lights’ organised tour.

I did the organised tour too but nothing materialised. One of the most expensive coffee’s I’ve ever had ha ha.

I have seen them on other occasions, in Norway and back at home in Yorkshire so it’s not like I’ve missed out too much.

29 minutes ago, P-L-B said:

Thanks for posting that real time video.

 

You were very lucky to have such a good show from the ship and it confirms that you can get the moving and shimmering effects as your video shows.

 

As you can see from my previous posts in this thread we were also very lucky and had a fantastic show when we visited last November.

 

On a technical note are you able to give me the Make Model of the video camera used for that footage and did you have manual settings. Not many non pro video cameras would be sensitive enough to capture that amount of low light detail.

Hi P-L-B

Yes, I used a Canon Legria HF G40 to capture that video and was surprised how much it picked up. It was the first time I’d tried it in those conditions too. I had it in full manual with the widest aperture, shutter speed of 1/12 sec (it goes down to 1/6 sec but no good when it’s hand held) and the gain control was at maximum.

As I said this was really the only night we saw them as from then on in Tromsø and Alta it was either snowing or absolutely zero auroral activity even when it cleared.

But don’t let that put you off, it was still an unforgettable experience. I’ve even booked to go back in Feb 2020 on Aurora for round 2.

My advice is if the weather's good don't wait until Tromsø to start looking. I was on Oriana's "ill fated" late March cruise this year when the best and only night we saw the lights was the night before we arrived in Tromsø heading north. You have a good chance of catching them once you're north Trondheim anyway and the best time is at sea when your away from other light pollution etc. Here's a link to my real time video I got from that night https://youtu.be/c81jDy4B1bE . It's a bit shaky but it was blowing a gale with snowstorms passing through.