Aurora!

(by Leslie)

Last night as I was brushing me teeth getting ready for bed, Robin came down to tell me, “The aurora webcam is showing activity—we should go out, now!”

“Okay.” I set down my toothbrush. We’d already been here a week but, because of the persistent cloud-cover, had yet to see the northern lights. Robin—who as many of you know can be somewhat obsessive about things once she gets them in her head—had been checking the aurora webcam and notification websites every night (and sometimes every two hours at night), and was champing at the bit to get out there to check this one out.

We hurriedly put on all our winter clothes—base layer, fleece sweater, overcoat, three pairs of sock, snow boots, fleece hat, mittens—and headed out in the car to the spot not too far from our house that we’d scoped out earlier for good viewing. And there it was: the aurora borealis!

these photos were all shot on a tripod at 10 seconds,

using my Canon Powershot A1200 set on its “night” setting

The display was exciting, especially since this was our first sighting of the lights. But from past experience we knew they could get better—way better.

another shot at the same local, to the right of the first one

I stood outside in the sub-zero cold busily taking photos while Robin stayed in the heated car to admire the display. After a few minutes we decided to head back home.

As we drove down the road to our house, I looked out the window. “Oh my god! Look!”

Robin stopped the car. Above us long curtains of shimmering green danced across the sky. We drove the last block to our house and rushed out onto the back deck to see the sight:

“It’s going even more in the front!” Robin exclaimed. (The front of the house faces north, where the lights are generally the strongest.) I grabbed my camera and tripod and hastened to set it up in the snow in the front yard:

the trees are lit up by the motion-detector lights in front of the house

“Ziggy should see this!” Robin said, and went inside to get her. She buttoned the pup inside her jacket, and brought her out for the show. Ziggy was not impressed, but we were.

Robin thinks she and Ziggy look like an ice sculpture in this shot

I went back inside to pour us a pair of bourbon-rocks, and when I looked out of the back porch window, I gasped:

As Dorothy Gale said, “there’s no place like home!”