Photographing the Northern Lights and a Winter dawn

Posted On February 24, 2015

I never thought that I’d get 2 great Northern Lights photography nights in a row, but it just happened. This morning’s aurora didn’t last as long as it did yesterday, but for a few minutes the display was even more spectacular.

The aurora forecast was good, so I went to bed at 8:30 with the alarm set for 12:30, figuring on pretty much an all-nighter aurora shoot. I looked out at 10:30 and the sky was still clear but there was no aurora. By 12:30, the sky was completely covered by clouds, so I gave up. At 04:00, I was up again, and had both requirements to hit the road – a clear sky and a very good auroral display.

I took some test shots of the house at 04:15, as the aurora was not the bands and rays that are the most photogenic, it was rapidly-moving, vaporous clouds of colour. But when these images turned out, I loaded the car and headed out.

Northern Lights over my home in Whitehorse, Yukon

By 04:45 the vaporous auroral clouds had begun to turn into the more usual forms. This was shot looking towards Whitehorse from near the Yukon River Bridge on the Alaska Highway.

Aurora borealis near the Yukon River Bridge on the Alaska Highway

The Yukon River Bridge lit up by a car passing by.

Northern Lights over the Yukon River Bridge on the Alaska Highway

Directly overhead there were some fast-moving patterns swirling around and joining the rays to form a complete arc.

Northern Lights overhead near Whitehorse, Yukon

I decided to go on a lengthy road trip loop via Carcross, and by 05:45 was stopped shooting at the M’Clintock River Bridge at Marsh Lake. This and the next photo show a fairly rare colour. These are not manipulated in any way – that’s what the camera recorded. While I was stopped here, one car stopped and backed up to be sure that I didn’t need help. I try to be obvious when I’m stopped in the middle of nowhere that I don’t, but wasn’t successfully in this case.

Northern Lights over the Alaska Highway at Marsh Lake, Yukon

A few miles further along, a very powerful ray appeared, but was gone in less than 5 minutes. A power line along the highway to the left ruined most of the shots I took here.

At 6:10 I knew that I was running out of night, but the aurora was fading anyway. I decided to continue on my loop to capture some dawn images, though.

The Tagish River Bridge is a great place to shoot the aurora, but it’s a long way from home and I’ve only been lucky a couple of times. Dawn light is wonderful there, too, though 🙂

Winter dawn at the Tagish River Bridge, Yukon

The view down the Tagish (a.k.a. Six Mile) River from the bridge at 06:45.

Caribou Mountain from the Tagish Road, which goes from the Alaska Highway through Tagish to Carcross.

Caribou Mountain from the Tagish Road, Yukon

Montana Mountain, which looms over Carcross, is in the centre. The peaks to the right are half-way down Lake Bennett, almost at the Yukon/BC border.

Looking back at Caribou Mountain.

Caribou Mountain from the Tagish Road, Yukon, at dawn

The next 2 photos were shot from the bridge over the Nares River on the South Klondike Highway at Carcross. It looked like the sunrise might be very pretty so I hung around there for a while, but the light went flat before that happened. The first photo is of Caribou Mountain.