Starry Starry Night… Stargazing and Chasing the Aurora Southern Lights in Tasmania

Stumbling upon this travel inspirations brochure by the Travel Associates about the Northern Lights journey had my jaw dropped. How could such a splendid and vivid field of lights be so out-of-this-world marvelous? I started dreaming away that I’d BE traveling to the Arctic regions during the Christmas festivity, staying in an uber-cool igloo hotel and singing along to the the spirited Christmas tunes while chasing the Northern Lights from the comfort of my own hotel bed room. I’d make my way there, one day! While the Arctic countries are nearly 9,000 miles away from where I’m here in Australia which makes my dream destinations sound a little but far to reach, I soon found out that I’m only a thousand miles from seeing the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights, via Discover Tasmania Facebook page. I was instantly inspired to pack my thermals and my sheepskin UGG boots (there’s gonna be a pair of functional yet pretty shoes for every occasion in my shoes closet!) and head South to Tasmania to write my own starry travel journal…

First night in Swansea, East Coast of Tasmania, playing Daddy Long Legs with our shadows while my brother and I were chasing the Aurora. We had our tripod set up, neither of us have experienced shooting the night sky, let alone the Aurora. We weren’t expecting that we’d be able to capture anything as spectacular as those professionals on the official Aurora Australis Facebook page with my my tiny Nikon V1 camera, but we thought we’d be extremely stoked even if we could capture the clear starry night, or have that little piece of luck to witness a hazy glow of red or green!

Our first attempt of shooting the milkyway while we were rubbing shoulders like a troops of penguins, embracing the sub-zero temperature on a crisp clear mid-winter night. Yet we were high spirited!

Then, all the shivering and teeth chattering were all worthwhile when we started to witness a hazy glow of faint red light across the horizon…

These shots didn’t quite capture the red glow as it was very faint, but we were absolutely stunned by the next shot we captured which displayed some mysterious and magical shades of green!

That was our first attempt of chasing the Aurora, hundreds of shots taken in three hours and only managed to get a handful that are worthy of blogging! But Swansea definitely made it to our highlight of this stargazing Tasmanian journey with the absence of light pollution, dry air and cloudless winter sky. And after this trip we’ve both pinned Finland to our travel Pinspiration board!

A couple of ‘behind the scene’ shots of us waiting for the starry night extravaganza to unveil, having fun with our shadows capturing the glowing sunset as the beautiful backdrop…

Still not convinced that Aurora chasing and stargazing in Tasmania will blow your mind and arouse your senses? I’ll let these professional photos do the work and leave you speechless…