Aurora in the darkroom / stop flash

Can't afford that winter trip to Iceland or Alaska? No worries, you can make a lovely little aurora at home.

Here's my recipe.

(1) Film developer, fairly strong e.g. 1+0 or 1+1. I'm using wd2d+ (10 mL part A, 10 mL part B + 500 mL water);
(2) Stop bath, e.g. ilfostop, at 1+4 or so.

In your darkroom, after your eyes have adjusted, pour some some (2) into (1). Oooh...

Now, this is an effect that I saw very weakly a few times before whilst tray developing, but convinced myself that I was hallucinating. But today I decided to do an experiment. After noticing a few faint flashes (quarter second or so in duration) when putting freshly developed film into the stop bath, I thought at first that this must be something to do with the film, but then I splashed some stop bath into the developer bath and... nice big flash. So of course I slowly poured the two baths together in the dark and confirmed that you get a nice glowing, chemiluminescent bath.

This latest observation of aurora stopealis was with wd2d+ developer and ilfostop. I dont know whether it will work with other developers- try and see for yourself! I may have seen it faintly before with other developers, but with the wd2d+ and ilfostop, the effect seems quite pronounced.

P.S. The stop flash has no apparent ill effect on the film. Normally you may not see it, because you may be inclined to shake extra developer off the film before dunking it into stop bath... or you may simply use a warm water bath to stop.

P.P.S. Explanations, anyone? Points will be awarded for the most exotic explanation.

keithwms said:

P.P.S. Explanations, anyone? Points will be awarded for the most exotic explanation.

Click to expand...

Wd2d+ is reversed engineered alien technology. You're seeing energy leaking from another dimension into ours as the Wd2d+ is neutralized.

Sounds pretty cool, I'll have to check this out.

You must have previously used the same tanks for developing infrared film, and it is just residual infrared leaking out and contaminating the chemistry (I wish this were totally a joke, but there is a well-known photographer who has stated in her book on infrared and handcoloring and other alternative techniques that infrared will contaminate the developing container, so you need to use a dedicated film developing tank to process IR).

Three points to Kirk:

+1 aliens
+1 other dimensions
+1 inter-dimensional energy leakage

Grand score of 3, hard to beat. Alas, my own explanation only scores 2 points.

One measly point to Scott, for proposing cross-contamination from IR films. C'mon Scott, Kirk set the bar higher than that You would have scored two points if you'd used the term "infrared energy beams."

ok- how about infrared protoplasm cross-contamination? Either that, or else the old standby:

Could it be...SATAN?

Extra point to Scott for turning this into a moral issue.

I'll hold off on the scientific explanation a while longer, I think...

Maybe it's the "+" flashing off?

Ole, I am disappointed that you didn't invoke something nuclear.

-1 points.

I didn't use the word "proton", but I thought that was implicit in the case under discussion anyway?

Copious quantities of low grade dope perhaps?

There are many reasons why this is done.

1. Stop bath impinges developer's freedom to exist by neutralizing it. This results in the emission of light as a protest.
2. Light exists inside the emulsion after shooting, trapped by the silver molecules. The stop bath lets the light finally escape.
3. Fairies like stop bath and developer as a lunchtime beverage, and emit light to demonstrate their pleasure.
4. Murphy (of Murphy's Law fame) loves light in the darkroom and tries everything he can to get it in there. Since you've sufficiently sealed the darkroom against external light entry, Murphy is now letting light enter chemically.
5. Someone dumped a bunch of radioactive radium into your developer so that it would glow in the dark (like the hands on your Gralab), but the stop bath allows the light to break the surface tension of the liquid.

That must be why. Yup, ahuh. Yup. There's the ticket.

Ole said:

I didn't use the word "proton", but I thought that was implicit in the case under discussion anyway?

Click to expand...

Oooh, okay, now I see where you were going with the +. That was subtle humour.

But still I think you passed up a golden opportunity to speculate on cold fusion...

Frank, for the record, my darkroom is on a college campus and as such is [officially] a drug-free environment.

PhotoJim said:

2. Light exists inside the emulsion after shooting, trapped by the silver molecules. The stop bath lets the light finally escape.

Click to expand...

I like that. But unfortunately, it happens when no film is present. It is possible that film is required to prepare the developer in a certain state, however; this calls for another experiment on my part.

How about this, Ole: stop bath "stops" the electrons. That's why they call it stop bath. And when you stop a lot of fast moving traffic, you get a lot of brake-lights flashing, which is also known as Bremsstrahlung.

It's like that old joke about don't drop the camera or all the photos will turn out blurry.

Or, yet another moral issue, but on the flipside... it's a sign from God that you were really supposed to be a mixologist specializing in tropical drinks. But not Kool-aid.

Originally Posted by PhotoJim
2. Light exists inside the emulsion after shooting, trapped by the silver molecules. The stop bath lets the light finally escape.

Jim:

Is that kinda like letting the magic smoke out of an electronic component?

Frank Szabo said:

Is that kinda like letting the magic smoke out of an electronic component?

Click to expand...

Precisely

Did anyone blame Global Warming yet?

No? Good: that's my explanation then...

Keith - what color was the light? I think we can determine who is right by finding that out.

If the color of the aurora was blue, then we can conclude that Ole is right, as it must be Cherenkov Radiation being formed from the proton decay. Protons normally have a half-live of around 10^32 years, but there must be something in the Wd2d+ that is accelerating this. It should decay in to a positron and a neutral pion, perhaps the Cherenkov radiation is from the reaction of the antimatter positron with an electron encountered in the stop bath.

If the color is green, and I mean a sickly flourescent green then obviously I'm right, as that is the key signature of anything to do with aliens. Well, at least with Greys, and their technology. I've never beleived that Spielberg multicolored alien depictions, it's just so Hollywood with all their flashing lights and such. But of course, if it is the Lizard People from Zeta Reticuli, then all bets are off, as who knows what colors those bad-assed aliens would use.

Scott, and his Satan Hypothesis, of course would be proven with a firey red color.

Right, I must determine the colour. Will do.

Professionally speaking, my bet is that the colour is blueish white. I might be completely wrong and it may be yellow to orange, but I'm quite certain it won't be green or purple - nor clearly blue. I don't really believe in red, either.

Just checked again and the colour, to my eye, is pale yellowish green.

I suppose that rules out Satan. Sorry Scott.

My guess: it was the Hand of God selectively erasing all nude images on your film

Dang - after seeing Ole's prediction on color, I was going to say yellow-green, as that is the peak of the L cone's pigment response for photopic vision... and it has the widest wavelength reange response too.

So it's looking like reverse engineered alien technology then...

Yep, it did occur to me that my dark-adjusted eyes may be seeing yellowish green just because that's what they'd see best. Unfortunately, both my spectrometers are slow-scanning instruments and I don't have a fluorimeter. Maybe I can find one over in chemistry.

Was it a "Voila!" or a "LOOK OUT!" type of light?