Aurora, part II

Well, I made my last post a bit too soon. After spending the evening on Freezeout Ridge (story and photos to come soon), Erin reminded us that the aurora might still be occuring and that we could possibly see it tonight. Clarkia isn’t the best place to test this hypothesis because its surrounded by tall mountains in all directions, so as we passed through Bovill, I noticed a glow on the northern horizon. At this point, it was only 10:00, still early enough that the glow could be residual light from the sun. I pulled the car over and set up the camera for a test shot. Sure enough, there was a green and pink glow in the sky, but there was also some light left over from the sunset. So, we continued on.

When we got home, the sky had darkened and the glow to the north was brighter than ever, with some streaks rising high into the sky. So we unloaded the car from the day’s excursion and I set up the camera in the field and produced the image above. Then I thought about trying to capture star trails, so I dialed the ISO down to 100 and left the shutter open for 10 minutes, being too impatient to wait any longer.

Of course, no Aurora night would be complete without a storm blowing in to cut viewing time short.