More Aurora!

(by Leslie)

As detailed in Robin’s last post, we were treated to another fine display of the northern lights last night. In anticipation of the possibility, Robin swept off the deck yesterday afternoon, so we could go out there to view the aurora without tracking snow into the house. Notice how little she was wearing, even though the thermometer read 15 degrees. One does get acclimated to the cold.

the display last night was better in the front yard,

so the sweeping ended up not being necessary

At about one-thirty a.m., I was awakened from a dream (some sort of thriller involving the take-over of Paris Match magazine—sure wish I could remember the rest) by Robin shouting from upstairs. Confused, I sat up. And then I realized what it meant. I scrambled to find my fleece-lined jeans, wool socks, and snow boots in the dark, grabbed my coat and my camera and tripod, and rushed outdoors to see the sight.

“It was a lot better just a minute ago,” Robin said in a disappointed voice. But it was still pretty good:

I picked up the tripod to move the camera to a spot where the view was clearer, forgetting that this would trigger the motion-detector light in front of the garage. But the shot is cool in its own way, showing the foreground all lit up:

A minute later a streak appeared, slashing across the night sky like the trail of a comet:

“There’s the big dipper,” I observed, “right above us.” Being as this constellation is on the Alaskan flag, I thought it right and proper to take a photo of the sight, even though the northern lights were not terribly prominent in the shot:

it’s upside down from the version on the flag

And then the curtains appeared. It’s amazing how they shimmer and move across the sky:

I’ve tried taking movies of the lights in motion, but they come out black on my little point-and-shoot. (Unlike with movies, I can do 15-second time exposures with the photographs.) Apparently, I’m not the only one with this problem, as most of the aurora stuff on YouTube is time-lapse photography. To see one, go here.

And yes, we did get a few stupendous displays:

The show lasted about a half hour. After it calmed down I stood at the window monitoring the sky for another fifteen minutes, but we eventually went back to bed at two-thirty. I wasn’t able to get much sleep afterwards, but it was so worth it.