Aurora Borealis

Very nice. It's been years since I've seen any that good. (And one of the times I did, was near there).

". . .The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge . . ."

-Robert Service

Oh. My. Gosh. Those are amazing. I was thrilled to see the aurora many years ago in Alaska in the summer, up around Admiralty Island, but they were tame compared to these.

Looking at this on my phone right now, can't wait to see them tomorrow on the full computer screen. Maybe someday I will get back up there to see more in person.

Amazing is right! Thanks for posting.

Awesome.

Those are great pictures. It's been over a decade since I've seen them in upstate NY. Truly an experience I'll never forget.

The conditions were right for a great show here in Washington a couple months ago but sadly it was cloudy all week.

Incredibly beautiful. Thanks for taking the time and sharing a few photos.

Breathtaking!

Thank you!

(I saw them only once about fifteen years ago, on a cool evening in Mt. Airy, Maryland, of all the places in the world to see them.)

I am pretty sure you live in heaven.

epic. wish i can experience even a fraction of that one day.

I was living in North Idaho and was working the swing shift at the sawmill and was driving home one night when I noticed a bright light to my left as traveled from west to east. At first I thought it was the moon rising until I realized that the moon doesn't rise out of the north. I pulled into an overlook and was treated with the best display of my life. I sat on the hood of the truck for about 45 minutes just watching them swirl above me.

What is this/are these called? I personally have never seen anything like it before!

getup

Nice work!

The Northern Lights are fascinating, reminding us that we are on a ball of rock spinning in space. I've seen them maybe twice in Seattle over the years.

We took a sub-Polar flight to Europe in the winter of 1986 and saw the Northern Lights for HOURS. It really was amazing. I have a window seat and my forehead kept getting cold from leaning on a window over the Arctic at 30,000 feet.

One the return flight, we went over Greenland in broad daylight and it was crystal clear, which is really rare. That was fantastic too, like another planet.

I was lucky enough to see them in March of 89, at the Army's Winter Warfare School. They seemed so close, it was if you could actually hear them. It was almost a soft humming static electricity sound, really don't know how to describe it or if it was all our imagination.

Heck yea! Those photos turned out incredible! Great job!

Hey what kind of camera and light settings were you using there? I assume you had a nice tripod or was it bright enough to not need one? I once was lucky enough to see them in Amherst, MA. Looked like a multi-colored cathedral from the rennaissaince period. So epic.

Hey Adam,

I never noticed your message, so sorry for not responding sooner. I used a Sony Nex6 for those photos. I only have a gorillapod for a tripod so for some shots I had the gorillapod wrapped around a tree branch, and for others I placed it on a log or right on the ground to take the shots. Wouldn't have been possible to get clear shots without some sort of stabilization.

As for camera settings – I played around with the exposure quite a bit. Shots varied from between 4 second shutter speed to 30 second shutter speed. I took the shots with shutter priority mode so the camera adjusted the aperature for me. I also played around a bit with the ISO, but if I remember correctly ISO 1600 gave me the best results. Higher ISO tended to produce too much noise.

It was all new for me, and was only my second time photographing the northern lights. I was also trying to enjoy the lights instead of fiddling around with my camera settings. Hopefully with another winter coming on I'll get more opportunity.

Cheers…