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Aurora safety

Yeunglings

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I know that with the solar storm there will likely be gps issues but does anyone know of other technical difficulties to worry about if I were to decide to fly tonight trying to tape the possible light show? Just recreationally and I won't be within about 20 miles of an airport or helipad
 
It'll be after twilight/sunset, which may be prohibited where you are flying, and VLOS may be harder to maintain as well, so make sure you are familiar with any additional local restrictions on night-time flying. Other than that, the EM interference at the Earth's surface from aurora, or even the solar storms that cause them, is *extremely* low resulting in a miniscule change to the signal to noise ratio which isn't likely to interfere with anything to an extent you'll have a problem.

Hopefully you'll get a really bright show and clear, dark, skies - it's nearly a new moon so that's good! Even at high-ISOs and wide apertures, exposures for the kind of colour saturation most people imagine from aurora can easy require several seconds. You'll also need to use manual focus and aim to get it somewhere around infinity if you want pinpoint stars in the background - I'd be very surprised if any drone camera can focus on a star given even high-end DSLRs struggle, but it might be worth trying AF on the moon or horizon to get in the ballpark.
 
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I’ve taken photos of the Aurora with my Mavic Pro before in Iceland. Didn’t have any issues in terms of flight. You need exposure set to max, which I think is 8s.
If the Aurora is not very active, you’ll see black screen. But when to take the photo, wait 8s and the photo taken will reveal if you got the Aurora.
 
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I’ve taken photos of the Aurora with my Mavic Pro before in Iceland. Didn’t have any issues in terms of flight. You need exposure set to max, which I think is 8s.
If the Aurora is not very active, you’ll see black screen. But when to take the photo, wait 8s and the photo taken will reveal if you got the Aurora.
Thanks, ill try that tonight. Last night I didn't think to change exposure at all and honestly I'm not sure how active things were anyway. There was a fair amount of light pollution going on too which I wasn't expecting.
 

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