Last night, Kathleen said to me, “I hear the aurora should be good tonight.” I checked the app on my phone that shows me the aurora data. Everything looked pretty good except the Bz value, which was about +17. (For a good show, you want the Bz to be negative. The longer it’s been negative, the better.)
I had to show the movie at the Evans Theatre anyway, so I settled in to watch I Like Movies, a quirky Canadian film about an awkward[1]Not to say infuriating. 17-year-old kid who, well, likes movies.
When the movie ended, I checked my phone again. Sometime during the movie the Bz had flipped, and it was around ‑27 and looked to be staying there for a while. Last month’s ridiculous show came during a ‑15 Bz event. So when we got home, I packed my gear and headed out.
It was almost 10pm when I got to my spot, and there was a significant cloud bank to the northwest. The aurora outside of the clouded area looked pretty meh. I set up my camera anyway.
I had a feeling that patience would be rewarded. The sky overhead looked pretty promising, too.
I aimed my camera at the pines that stand at the edge of the road, and waited. Sure enough…
I set myself a 30-minute timer, and let the camera click away, hoping to get a good timelapse.
Once that was done, I snapped a few more shots of the action going on all around me. There were lights visible, once again, to the south of me. Also, at one point, the sky lit up so it was easily as bright as the full moon. My photos from those moments are overexposed, but honestly, the aurora was bright enough to read by for a minute or two.
When I got home, just around midnight, it was possible to see shapes and movement in town, even in the glare from the streetlights. I didn’t get any photos of that, though; I was cold, tired, and it was a school night.
À la prochaine, aurora.
Interested in prints of my photos? Let me know, and we can work something out.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Not to say infuriating. |
|---|