aurora borealis

The late show

Posted on by Patrick
Aurora Borealis

About mid­night last night, after I got home from get­ting half an hour of chilly star trails (and charged up the bat­ter­ies the cold killed), I checked the space-weath­er app on my phone. It told me I had a strong chance of see­ing some auro­ra if I left like right now.

So I did, and between about 12:15 and 1 AM, I got almost 400 pho­tos of north­ern lights.

  • Aurora Borealis
  • Aurora Borealis
  • Aurora Borealis
  • Aurora Borealis
  • Aurora Borealis
  • Aurora Borealis
  • Aurora Borealis
All pho­tos tak­en from 50th Street at the west­ern edge of town

And I made all 393 pho­tos into a 30-sec­ond time­lapse, too. (Every sec­ond of video rep­re­sents a minute of real time.)

Nerdy details: each pho­to is a 5‑second expo­sure, 11mm, f/2.8, ISO 1600. The pho­tos were edit­ed for brightness/contrast; the frames in the video are all straight-out-of-camera.

Autumn Aurora

Posted on by Patrick
Aurora Borealis

Space Weath­er pre­dict­ed Arc­tic auro­ras (orig­i­nal­ly the storm was pre­dict­ed to be stronger, but got down­grad­ed). Some­times that turns out, so since it was clear last night, I head­ed out of town for about an hour.

When I ini­tial­ly set up, there was noth­ing real­ly hap­pen­ing, auro­ra-wise, but I decid­ed to shoot for a while any­ways. If noth­ing else, I’d have a half-hour star trails image. The moon was full, so I’d have a nice bright fore­ground, too.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Autumn Auro­ra” →

Writing Retreat 2020, Day 7

Posted on by Patrick
Minnedosa cairn with a plough on top

Fri­day:

  • I lay awake from about 4 am till about 5:30 am thanks to a cou­ple of thun­der­storms pass­ing through.
  • In the morn­ing, I biked about 6 km before it got over­ly hot.
  • While I was out on my bike, I took pho­tos for a cou­ple of panora­mas (one of which turned out as I’d hoped).
Minnedosa cairn with a plough on top
The plough cairn (panora­ma; 18 pho­tos, 50mm, f/2.8 each)
  • I wrote 500 words in Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, did some pre­lim­i­nary edit­ing of “The Slow Apoc­a­lypse” (though it might still be too ear­ly for me to work on this), and wrote 300 word in “Dried Flowers”.
  • I read a few more chap­ters in The Wiz­ard—as I approach the end, I’m torn between savour­ing it and find­ing out what hap­pens next.
  • I tried to come up with a coher­ent end­ing for Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, because while I know the final scene, I don’t have the sto­ry’s end­ing ful­ly fleshed out yet. It’s a bit frus­trat­ing, frankly; I’m the kind of writer that needs a sol­id end­ing before I start a project. I thought I had it, but the char­ac­ters are going their own ways.
  • I noticed the sky had got quite colour­ful about 9:15 pm, and stepped out­side in time to snap a pho­to of a love­ly sun­set. I only got bit­ten by 22 mos­qui­toes in the 5 min­utes I was out­side, too, so that’s a victory.
Sunset with clouds: blue, orange, pink, and indigo
Sun­set on a Fri­day evening
  • About 11:45 I went and got some pho­tos of Comet NEOWISE and the north­ern lights. (And anoth­er cou­ple dozen bug bites.)
Comet NEOWISE and aurora
Comet NEOWISE and aurora
  • And I man­aged to catch the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion as it went over­head, even though it tried to hide behind a cloud.
The International Space Station ducks behind a cloud
I waved to the ISS astro­nauts as they went by

All in all, a good Fri­day, even if it was a bit too hot to even think straight. (No sweet­er sin than air con­di­tion­ing, I tell you.)

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers; Storm dam­age, sun­flow­ers; Eleanor Kidd gar­dens; Scenes from today’s ride; All right, autumn can be pret­ty; Bike ride, April 10, 2021; Bike ride wildlife; Bike ride, May 16, 2021; Some flow­ers for you; Lilacs; Under the bridge; A fence, a tree, and the sky; Tur­tle Cross­ing; Ceme­tery crit­ters; On Reflec­tion; Week­end rides; Upon Reflec­tion; Deer and paparazzi; Sep­tem­ber Bike Ride; Corn & Sun­set; On Reflec­tion: Oct. 1st; Autumn Trees; A bit of graf­fi­ti; Novem­ber bike ride; Geese; Day 30; Quack quack; Skin­ny deer; Mon­day bike ride; Sat­ur­day snaps; Deer + Flow­ers; Bike Ride — July 17, 2022; The mead­ow; It seems to be autumn; Por­tal fan­ta­sy; Sla­va Ukrai­ni; Writ­ing Retreat 2023: Thurs­day bike ride; Bike Ride, May 20, 2024; Shy; Cana­da Day ride; A long ride; Cook­ie Ride redux; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End; Bike Ride, Sep. 22, 2024; Today’s Ride — Oct. 6, 2024; Souris Val­ley; Bike Ride Pho­tos — May 19, 2025; Bike ride, May 24; Art in the trees.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.