Home
Contact Us
Biography
Art Prints Order Info
Stock Photography
Fine Art Gallery

 

Recommended Links

 

 
 

#211101 Northern Lights over Bartlett Village.

I had worked a full on day at my gallery, then brought mom dinner and hung out with her at the nursing home, followed by a late dinner at home. Relaxing on my couch with shoes off, sweats on, after enjoying a massive dinner, with my second glass of wine.... I then saw on FB, there was an unexpected Aurora alert with a high Kp number. I really did not feel like putting my clothes back on, packing the car w gear, and heading out into the night to 'try' for an Aurora image, but guilt overcame me, telling myself to go out and "do your job". So I did. The thing with Aurora alerts is there is no guarantee you will see something special, and if you do, it might only happen for the last 10 minutes of the entire night out, just after calling it quits. More than once, I have been out until 3am, and got chased away by clouds obstructing my viewpoint, only to find out the next day, the show started at 3:30 and was visible if I were a bit more South of my location. It's really a crap shoot, even with a good forecast. Tonight I set up my tripod around 8pm, and waited. I couldn't see anything with the naked eye, but a small bit of color was visible on the camera image, as the sensor picks up much more than our eyes, over a longish exposure. After a couple hours, clouds obstructed my viewpoint and I bailed. I went back to the couch, trying to calm down before sleep, and decided to check the KP reading once more before bed, and what do you know..it was surging. I hopped off the couch again and jumped out the door (at least the gear was still in the car), and set up again around 11pm. Over the next hour, it was visible to the naked eye, and at times the camera could see the pinkish-red spires as shown in this image. The clouds indeed, chased me off again. But I came away with this image, that I am quite happy with. I hope you like it:)

Unexpected Aurora last night was pretty sweet:).... Northern Lights over Bartlett Village.