A night of red aurora
We’ve had some extremely optimistic aurora forecasts that turned out to be duds lately, but the night of October 7th-8th was very good, and the aurora was seen way down into the States. I was out shooting it twice.
I wasn’t feeling well on the 7th so went to bed very early (7:30?), but Lady Aurora woke me up at 8:45 pm. I looked outside, and quickly got my gear together. I shot the first photo at 9:09, a 20-second exposure at ISO 800. I was quite shocked by the colours the camera caught.
The sky was pretty much full of colour, and the patterns changed rapidly – the next photo was shot only a minute later.
To stop the rapid movement better, I increased the ISO to 1600 and reduced the exposure time to 13 seconds. The next photo showing both an extremely unusual pattern and great colours was shot at 9:13. There was some cloud to the north, and the orange glow of the city can be seen reflected off it to the lower right.
9:17, ISO 1250 @ 20 seconds. I was pretty sure by now that I needed to go for a drive to a better viewing location but didn’t want to miss anything.
At 9:24 I shot some photos from the driveway as I was about the leave. The display in this direction (north) wasn’t as bright, and the trees are lit by a neighbour’s security lights.
By 9:36 I was back in the historic Copper Belt mining area with a 360-degree clear view. ISO 1600 @ 15 seconds.
The aurora had slowed down, and clouds had started to move in. The next photo, a selfie, wasn’t shot until 9:54.
I went home soon after that, and went back to bed. At about 04:15, though, Lady Aurora woke me up again, and I was quickly out shooting off the back deck again. The next photo, shot at 04:24, looks west towards the mountain called Golden Horn – a very unusual direction to shoot.
The sky was full of colour again, though, and I shot in every direction in the next few minutes.
The last photo I’ll post was shot at 04:28. I took a few more photos looking straight up, then the display faded and I went back to bed again.
You may wonder why I sometimes use the term “Lady Aurora.” Well, the Greeks held that Aurora was the sister of Helios and Seline, the sun and moon respectively, and that she raced across the early morning sky in her multi-coloured chariot to alert her siblings to the dawning of a new day. I like the thought of her dancing through the skies with colourful skirts, too, and of her gently waking me now when she’s about to put on a good show 🙂
This is the third aurora post in a row, but there’s a lot more than aurora going on in my life. Getting ready for Father Winter’s arrival any day now takes many hours – some of it really needs to be done (like firewood, RV winterizing, and finishing setup of the new portable garage), and some is just things I would like to get done (like leaf raking and doing some fence modifications/repairs). Last night I started arranging a week-long Arizona desert road trip with my daughter – I’ll be flying south to Phoenix in 5 weeks, and will have lots to show you on that trip.
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