Finally, out with Lady Aurora for a bit

Posted On October 24, 2020

A friend and I finally got out for a bit of aurora borealis photography last night. There have been some good shows this season already but this was my first time out due my ongoing brain injury challenges.

The aurora forecast has been good for the past 3 nights, but the last two were complete duds. Last night, though, things were looking good even on the 30-minute forecast.

The aurora show began early, at about 8:00, but it was very brief. I got my stuff together and went to a dark spot at the south end of the Whitehorse airport. It’s not generally a good location for photography because of the city lights, but it’s a good spot to watch them develop before moving to a better photo location. The first photo in this post was shot at 9:06, though I’d taken a couple of other shots starting at 8:49. It’s really nice to get started early – the 01:00 shows are much tougher for me now.

When the aurora got more active, we drove 34 km west on the Alaska Highway to the Dawson Trail pullout at Km 1524.1 – it offers a fairly broad view and traffic light trails can sometimes be fun. At 9:48 I started shooting the aurora there. Nothing dramatic yet, but a good start.,

Patience is a prime requisite for aurora photography 🙂

A couple of minutes before 10:00, an interesting light tower began to build to the south of us. With the view being back towards town, the orange glow is the city lights.

Traffic was very light, but I did get 3 light-trail photos. Trucks are the best because of their extra lights. I shot the next one, looking west on the Alaska Highway, as that light tower was building nicely.

The next photo shows the aurora to the east at its peak, at 10:04 – it died very quickly after that.

We decided to drive another 15 km west, to the Takhini River Bridge, as we both had some ideas for using the river as a foreground when the aurora returned.

One last little glimmer of aurora at 10:22.

The aurora didn’t return in any big way, though. The final photo shows the moon over the Takhini River at 10:24. We could hear swans chatting in the distance – always a wonderful addition to the experience for me.

We headed back towards Whitehorse with the idea that we’d find another location to wait for the aurora’s return. I was rapidly slipping into not feeling well, though, so had to go home. When the aurora returned in a big way just after midnight, I was asleep with Tucker snuggled up tightly beside me. It’s quite amazing how dialed into me he is – when my brain injury crap flares, he does whatever he can to help, and his help is significant to me.

Although we have a few more days of great aurora forecasts, the weather is shutting down for the next few days so we can’t take advantage of it.

I hope that you’re all doing well in these difficult times. Taking care of each other is more important now than ever. Be safe.