Kennebec, South Dakota Farmer Releases His Latest Time Lapse Video ‘Huelux’

Randy Halvorson is a farmer near Kennebec, SD and also owner of Dakota Lapse, which sells videos and still photographs. His latest project 'Huelux' was shot in South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah over nine months in 2013 and includes some beautiful shots of the Milky Way and Aurora.

Halvorson writes that the weather last year made it difficult at times to get the shots he wanted, but at the same time added to what he was doing.

"On the Milky Way shots you will see a lot of slow and fast moving satellites, a few meteors and planes. The meteors are hard to see in timelapse, but you may see a quick flash because they only last one frame. If you see a light moving across the sky, it is either an airplane or satellite, not a meteor."

"Some of the Aurora I shot were unexpected with no advanced notice. Several nights I was setting up Milky Way shots, when I noticed the glow in the sky to the north. In one case an hour before I got any Aurora notification on my phone. The storm shot at 2:57 has Aurora behind it, which was quickly covered up by the storm."

"I came up with the title Huelux, which comes from hue (a color property), and lux which is latin for light. Some of the Aurora and Milky Way were difficult to color correct, so I spent a lot of time with the hue settings, white balance, etc. during the month and a half edit..The low Aurora on the horizon were often yellow, while closer (higher in the sky) Aurora were green. If I adjusted the yellow Aurora on the horizon green, it threw the rest of the colors way off. If I adjusted the yellow Aurora on the horizon green, it threw the rest of the colors, such as grass, way off and made the whole image too blue."