Levin Barrett, And a Sprinkle of Stardust (SEASCAPE 2026)

Well, May 11 2024 was a night for the record books. The earth was hit by one of the biggest Aurora in decades. I realised at lunchtime that a KP 9 was happening in the Northern Hemisphere so on a whim and a prayer I drove 3 hours to the great Ocean Road. I was not let down or disappointed. The sky absolutely erupted after sunset into the best Southern Hemisphere aurora I've ever seen and will likely ever see. This image was kind of the grand finale for the night. 18 image panorama, 3 rows of 6 shot in vertical format. It took 6 hours of manual stitching in PTGUI and another 3 hours of Lightroom/Photoshop process (and no AI). A LOT of effort but I could see the potential. The result was an almost unbelievable Milky Way arch over the Aurora arch with the core in the lower left and a SAR on the right. All over the Bakers Oven in the Great Southern Ocean. This is the stuff dreams are made of.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.