Last Night

Wednesday and Thursday a couple solar events occurred on the Sun.  The remnants of this event reached Earth this weekend.  Friday night was a 4 of 10 on the UAF Geo-Physical Institutes forecast.  Saturday night, tonight, will be a 5.

This is a preview of several segments of time lapse I've captured and begun working on.  I hope to compile a variety of aurora encounters into a mini-movie.  Here is about 30 minutes turned into 26 seconds of video.

Last night is near the top of the list for best sightings in my life.  The show began quietly around 11:30pm.  A few clouds were obscuring the view to the north, as seen in the video.  Over the course of the evening the clouds cleared, and the aurora grew and grew.  It shifted position slightly traversing the north western sky.  The conclusion of the show was nearly the entire sky illuminated in green.  

Then, around 3:30am, as quietly as it began, it started to fade.  My knees were sore from kneeling behind the tripod, my batteries nearly depleted, and my fingers getting chillier and chiller- it was time to head in. I found photographing the sky in 0F much more comfortable then -55F encountered the weekend before.

So, what's next?  I have two goals for tonight.  Shut off all the exterior lights on the school.  It is the largest building in the village with massive florescent flood lights.  I think a lot of the amber glows and odd looking illumination around the ground cover is from the school lights.  Then, I'm going to use a snow machine and create some trails up river from my house.  This will provide new vantage points overlooking a twinkling village and vast Arctic.