More from the Yamnuska Aurora
On December 20th, the Aurora Borealis were very active above the Ghost Lake area. I spent a bit of time photographing a prairie church with the Northern Lights before I went to Mount Yamnuska. The colors visible against the night sky varied between green, purple and blue as the charged particles slamming into the Earth’s upper atmosphere interacted with different atoms.
After a couple of hours, it was close to 6am and I was pretty worn out. One of my last images, below, I was facing northeast and caught the aurora along with the city glow from Cochrane and the earliest hint of dawn. I went home and played catch up with sleep.
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Aurora and the McDougall Church
The Aurora Borealis was just starting to visibly glow when I arrived at the McDougall Memorial United Church near Morley, Alberta. Cochrane’s city lights reflected off the large cloud behind the church which brought the peach hues into the scene. It is a tranquil scene to look at while I recall the heavy wind and biting cold that came along with it. Still, I was happy to be out and it was a beautiful start to a great night watching the Northern Lights.
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Aurora over Yamnuska
On the weekend the Aurora Borealis leaped to life on both Saturday and Sunday night. I was too tired to head out on Sunday night after staying out until 6am that morning. The Northern Lights rippled for over five hours so I had the luxury of being able to travel around and photograph them in different locations. I finished the night at the foot of Mount Yamnuska and watched them dance until just before dawn. I will have more to share soon but wanted to post this one from the early selects where the charged electrons were interacting with Nitrogen in the Earth’s upper atmosphere to create the less typical purple flames alongside the Oxygen which creates the more common green glow.
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Aurora Borealis in Waterton
My son and I camped at the Waterton Springs Campground, on the edge of the national park, a week ago. On the second night the Northern Lights came out and danced along the northern horizon.
The campground is in the rolling foothills that lead up to the mountains so it was less than a hop, skip and a jump to a rise where we could get great views of aurora.
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Lightning and the Northern Lights? Last night there was.
I came home late last night after watching the chuckwagon finals and the final grandstand show of the 2015 Calgary Stampede. That was a great night (thank you Larissa and Sean) and as I cleared the city driving home, it became that much better. From the Trans-Canada Highway, I looked northward and could easily see the glow of the Aurora Borealis stretched between Cochrane and Calgary.
Altering my course, I drove towards the Springbank airport and found a good hill to watch the sky from. While setting up my camera gear, lightning flashed from deep within the thunder clouds that hung low in the sky. The party was in full swing and I was excited to join in, albeit from a distance, and start photographing.
The auroras were rippling above these clouds and it made for an incredible experience.
I stayed out for two hours watching as the storms slowly wound down while the entire northern sky was painted on with ethereal beauty. Early on, the lightning streaked to the ground several times in different parts of the sky and ripped across the clouds regularly. In the second hour, the Aurora Borealis grew larger and brighter while the storm separated as the clouds spread out across the prairies.
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The Northern Lights over southern Alberta
I live in a forest community along the Elbow River near Bragg Creek in Alberta. I often enjoy watching the stars against the silhouette of the trees. When I saw the Aurora Borealis begin to shade the northern sky once dusk’s afterglow darkened, I raced around to set up my gear on the deck.
It turned out to be a very active aurora and I had a couple of hours to watch the colors ripple across different parts of the northern sky. The beauty above was met in equal measure by the sounds of the crickets and birds and the relaxed touch of a warm, summer wind.
The time drifted by without any ties to an actual clock and I felt pleasantly ensconced in my own little world. The Northern Lights seem to have that effect on me.
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Aurora over the prairie
A little over a week ago, on June 13th, I spent a night out on the prairies near Nanton. I love the vast skies and many of the interesting things that fill them – above and below. I settled into my sleeping bag to watch the stars while I drifted off. That idea evaporated when I received an Aurora Red Alert indicating that there was a good chance of seeing the Northern Lights.
(If any images look a little grainy, please click on the picture to open a higher resolution version in a new window)
The image directly above was one of the first taken once I was set up. I used a long exposure of 30 seconds to stretch out the lights of a semi-trailer traveling north along Highway 2.
I played around there for a while before moving further east to reduce the golden glow on the undersides of the clouds resulting from High River’s lights.
I found a quiet field several miles away and the timing worked out as the spikes in the Aurora had just started to appear.
The Northern Lights were still glowing as dawn started to push into the sky and before 4 AM I was transitioning into sunrise landscapes.
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The Northern Lights and a bank of clouds
After owling (and here) in the evening I went into Calgary for dinner and when I was close to Redwood Meadows found the Aurora Borealis were dancing to the north. The lights were partially hidden behind a large cloud bank which was an unusual sight for me that were impressive as they glowed above the fields.
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Northern Lights in Bragg Creek
After the Great gray owl and I parted ways it was very dark which helped me to notice a slight glow to the north. I drove to a field where I could get a better view of the sky and found the Aurora Borealis was just starting to brighten off the horizon. The lights rippled and stretched above valley for more than an hour.
As they began to wane, I went to nearby Wild Rose Lake and was able to catch the Aurora’s reflection in the water. As well as its glow mixing with the city light from Calgary. This was an unexpected, but gratefully welcomed, surprise and end to an already great night photographing out in the country.
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The Northern Lights over Southern Alberta
The Aurora Borealis has been very strong for a few nights in a row, reaching southern Alberta regularly which comes after what has seemed like a very long absence. Perhaps it has just been me that was absent for shows since last year but being out for this one on the night of March 18-19. When I went out at 11pm, there was a dull green bow low in the sky towards Calgary. After a while, the arch began to glow brighter and stretch higher. Columns then started to separate from the green band and the arch itself dissolved. For the next couple of hours the lights shifted their shapes, colors and intensity.
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I was out on the berm that sits between Redwood Meadows and the Elbow River. The height of the berm, the rocky shoreline and the snow remnants allowed for a variety of perspectives. The three and half hours that the Northern Lights performed allowed me the time to explore these. It was an amazing night.
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Aurora over the Elbow River
Canon 5DIII – 24mm lens: 6 seconds on f/1.8 at ISO 3200
In the middle of the active Aurora that reached southern Alberta the lights were reflecting brightly over the waters of the Elbow River in Redwood Meadows.
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Saint Patrick’s Aurora
Canon 5DIII – 24mm lens: 2.5 seconds on f/1.8 at ISO 6400
The night after St. Patrick’s Day brought out the Aurora Borealis over southern Alberta. Along the Elbow River, west of Calgary, the bands of color rippled in the sky and on the surface of the water for several hours. I met two photographers, Stacey and Clif, out on the berm. They had come out to Redwood Meadows in search of the Northern Lights. The show took a little while to start so it was nice to chat while we waited. When the lights did start to dance it was beautiful. I will share more images from the night soon as the colours and mood changed throughout the night and allowed for great variety.
