Tag Archives: Northern Lights

Northern Nights Near Canada!

Background, Year 9, ,

Today will end my Covid quarantine, and tomorrow assuming I mask up, I will be able to reengage with the world. It will be fantastic to spend time with my wife. We have gotten behind in watching “The Crown”!!

As I have noted in prior posts this week, I am hard at work completing the second edition of Snowy’s Search for Color, and have pushed along on my new book … about Smokey the Great Gray Owl! Thus, it should be apparent that my case of Covid is somewhat mild!

Both of my two books on occasion involve using images of the night sky. Thus, after the hard process of making selections and processing edits, there two scenes will be used in the new book.

Milky Way deep in off the Gunflint Trail (It was so dark this night, that when I walked 25 yards away from my car, it was impossible to see my Subaru Outback! The BWCA is rated as having perfectly dark skies by the International Dark Sky Association)

Northern Lights over the Pagami Creek Wildfire Burn Area (I was 18+ miles from the nearest paved road and within yards of the BWCA. During this entire night of Aurora chasing I never saw another person or vehicle … only heard wolves and owls! The Northern Lights had been much more dramatic earlier in the night, but the contrast between the burn area and the Aurora was awe inspiring). The light painting of the wooden bridge in these images was done with the ever so brief use of a tiny flashlight (about 1 second).

Lady Aurora Dances for 3 Generations of the Family

Year 9,

Lady Aurora came out and danced last night … oh my did she ever dance! The Northern Lights at our small Northwoods cabin near the Canadian border with Minnesota were fantastic. I knew moonset would be at 11:15 pm; thus I set an alarm for 12:05 am and was I thrilled with what I saw when I awakened. I then proceeded to wake up my friends, my grandchildren and their parents (my kids). Everyone was transfixed with the sky’s shimmering beauty as we watched the lights march across the night sky.

After viewing the Aurora for about and hour, I moved on to Suomi Lutheran Church and Smith Lake (2nd church photo has been light painted with a flashlight for about one second). I wanted to try taking a few photos at other locations. At the bottom of this post you will find a couple of images from the “morning after.” Fog was forming at sunrise given the temperature was only 41F. The Northwoods are magical.

I finished back at NorthStar Lake where I even took two selfies!

As a fyi, unlike many folks who take photographs of the Northern Lights, I edit in post processing to remove color and reflect what I saw with my naked eye. The Aurora last night was very white.

Finally, a photograph taken the next morning of the same scene. The sun had just popped over the treetops, and given the 41F heavy fog formed within the next ten minutes.

Views from a Bed! Northern Lights!

Year 9

Looked out of our cabin’s bedroom window at 3:45 am this morning … Uff dah! Decided I needed to get dressed and head down to the lake (North Star Lake in northern Minnesota). While Northern Lights forecasts are notoriously poor, the numbers / forecast are much actually much better for tonight, Saturday, September 3rd. See the Aurora Borealis section of this blog to learn more about how and when to watch the Northern Lights in northern Minnesota. Life is good when you may watch Lady Aurora dance from your own bed!