Notes To My Mother

On Friday afternoon, May 10, 2024, Jan and I were getting coffee in a very small somewhat crowded coffee shop in downtown Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.  We overheard people talking about the Northern Lights showing up that night.  And thus began one of the most exciting nights of photography in my life.  If you have read my three previous blog posts you have seen some of the spectacular color displays we were able to capture.  In these images I have included some foreground information to put the color displays in perspective.  The picture above was taken to the northeast of the Trumpeter property where they house the pygmy goats and alpacas. Looking to the northwest you can see the moon low on the horizon.  The building shown here has an additional suite that is separate from the main B&B house..   This image is looking due east showin the stable for the animals.   Another view to the east showing the building with the separate ...

  I had fully intended to finish off these blogs regarding the aurora with some images with visible landscape in the foreground to put the light show in perspective.  Then I found these three overlooked images and just had to share them.  These three were taken with the camera pointed toward the zenith.  The one above was a 10 second exposure. Thirty seconds later this image was taken with a 15 second exposure.  Notice how the image is smoother and less detailed due to the constant motion of the light.  The faster image actually shows more of the structure of the aurora.  The longer exposures smooth out the light in much the same way as a long exposure of moving clouds smooths out the cloud structure. Again,  taken about 30 seconds later, this image was also a 15 second exposure.  With the first two the camera was aimed at exactly the same spot for both images.  The camera shifted slightly for this image such that more of the lower porti...

As a quick update: All of these images were taken on the night of May 10-11, 2024. on San Juan Island WA.  We were taken by surprise in the middle of our vacation when it was announced there was to be an aurora display that would likely be visible from our location.  What an understatement!  What we witnessed was simply out of this world.  We saw colors I did not know existed in the auroras, especially the light pinks and, of all things, orange (neon).   There were four of us on the grounds at the Trumpeter Inn during the "show".  I was the only one with a DSLSR camera so the others would see something interesting and I would point my camera in that direction and take a timed exposer.  Most were in the 15 to 20 second length.   At one point, Jan looked up straight overhead and saw something that was quite unusual; it looked like some kind of convergence.  I pointed the camera overhead and took this picture, which I find startling....

  This last May, my wife, Jan, and I were on vacation in the San Juan Islands, WA.  We were there for a week staying at the Trumpeter Inn, a B&B on San Juan Island.  Mid way through our stay we heard there was to be a Northern Lights display and that we would likely be able to see it since we were at a latitude just north of Victoria, BC.  The excitement was immediate.  The conditions were just right as the sky was cloudless and the moon was in its crescent phase and would be low on the horizon (and therefore not overly bright) during the expected good viewing time between 10 pm and 2 am.   The image above was taken that night and is what I was expecting to see, a green Aurora.  Little did we know what was to come! Early on the was the first hint that something special was about to happen as color in addition to green began to show.  I found this very exciting as I had seen green auroras before but never one with the purple/blue colors an...