The Aurora Borealis, May 10, 2024

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 and here it was. Had it ended here, I would have been perfectly happy. By the way, the green and yellow colors are produced by oxygen in the atmosphere. Blues, purples, reds and pinks are a result of nitrogen. This image looks to the northeast.

Imagine my excitement when I saw this scene. Looking again to the northeast but later in the night from the previous image, an array of colors including, to my amazement, orange, made their appearance. I didn't know orange was even possible with auroras but it turns out it is the result of neon.

A little later still, looking to the northwest, there was a predominance of reds, pink, purple and blue along with the green. Seems to be a tad of orange as well. You can see just above the horizon the setting moon. I will share some more amazing color displays in my next blog post.

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