Overnight in the city

Star trails above a row of trees, lit from below by house lights and traffic

As I was going to bed last night, I took a look out the win­dow. The fore­cast had said it was sup­posed to be part­ly cloudy overnight, but the sky looked pret­ty clear. I set up a cam­era in the spare room, point­ed out the win­dow, and let it snap away. I fig­ured I’d get some star trails out of it if noth­ing else.

The auro­ra decid­ed to make an appear­ance. It was just get­ting ramped up when my cam­era bat­tery died around 2:30am, but I got a cou­ple good shots out of it.

Oh, and the star trails turned out pret­ty good, too. They’re at the top, and are tak­en from about the first hour and a half of the evening.

The video below is the full two hours and thir­ty-six min­utes, but it runs at 60x so that one sec­ond of video is one minute of real[1]What­ev­er that might mean, rel­a­tivis­ti­cal­ly. time.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
1 What­ev­er that might mean, relativistically.

Birthday Aurora

Panoramic photo of the aurora

Yes­ter­day was my birth­day, and the sky was clear and the auro­ra data were pret­ty good. So about 10pm I hit the road, and got these pho­tos about 15 min­utes from my house.

Above: an 11-pho­to panora­ma stretch­ing from west to east.

The stars were sharp and clear, too, in the cold air, so I snapped some pho­tos of one of my favourite con­stel­la­tions, Orion.

And because my cam­eras were nice and still for most of the time, I have a minute or so of time­lapse video for you. Each sec­ond of video is a minute of real time.

Aurora and clouds, Oct. 10–11, 2024

The aurora trying to peek through the clouds, red and green

It was clear to the west, so I grabbed my cam­era and took a chance.

It was not clear to the north.

Once I got home, the sky to the east was clear. I set up a cam­era in our spare room, aimed due east, and let it click until the bat­ter­ies died. Between 11:30pm and 2:30am it got these gems, plucked from almost 2000 frames.

These pho­tos, I have to keep remind­ing myself, were tak­en inside the city. Nor­mal­ly I’m hap­py when I get light like this a few kilo­me­tres out of town, where it’s start­ing to get prop­er­ly dark. These auro­ra were com­pet­ing with street­lights, and winning.

Oh yeah, I also turned the 2000ish pho­tos from the spare room into a timelapse.

Aurora, Oct. 7, 2024

Aurora Borealis as viewed from within the city, facing due east

This is not an every­day[1]Everynight. view from my back yard.

Aurora Borealis as seen from my back yard

…or my upstairs bedroom.

Aurora viewed through my upstairs window

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
1 Everynight.

Writing Retreat (5b — Aurora Borealis)

Panorama of last night's aurora, west to east

It was quite a night.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Writ­ing Retreat (5b — Auro­ra Bore­alis)”

Series: Writing Retreat 2024

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (1); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (2); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (3); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (4); Writ­ing Retreat (5a — Milky Way); Writ­ing Retreat (5b — Auro­ra Bore­alis); Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End.

Aurora Borealis, July 31– August 1, 2024

Aurora Borealis: vivid purple pillars above a green band; I'm standing in front of two pines with the lights in the background

I got out to my spot about 11:30pm, just in time for the show to ramp up. When it start­ed to slow down, I packed my cam­eras into the car, get­ting ready to head home since it was a school night. But as I was col­laps­ing my tripods, the auro­ra sud­den­ly flared up again, and I scram­bled to get my cam­eras re-mount­ed and click­ing away again. I think it was worth stay­ing up a lit­tle late.

Aurora Borealis: vivid purple pillars above a green band, with two pines in the foregroundAurora Borealis: vivid purple pillars above a green band, with two pines in the foreground