Aurora Borealis over the Elbow River
Aurora over the Elbow
Canon 5DIII + 24mm f/1.4 lens: 2.5 seconds at f/1.6 on ISO 1600
The Northern Lights came to life over my home in Redwood Meadows a couple of nights ago. I threw on some winter gear and walked down to the Elbow River with my camera and tripod. The moon was waning but was close to full and lit up the snow and ice so my headlamp wasn’t needed. I went out on the ice and watched the Aurora ripple across the northern quarter of the sky. It was a cold and very late show. And I loved it.
Note: Click on any photograph to open a higher resolution version of the image.
Northern Lights on ice
Canon 5DIII + 24mm f/1.4 lens: 1.6 seconds at f/2.5 on ISO 1600
Aurora Flare
Canon 5DIII + 24mm f/1.4 lens: 4 seconds at f/2.5 on ISO 1600
The colors dimmed after an hour or so and I could barely make out the lights. The camera could still resolve them and I liked the subtle color in one of the last images from the evening.
Fading lights
Canon 5DIII + 24mm f/1.4 lens: 3.2 seconds at f/2 on ISO 1600
Searching for the Northern Lights
Canon 5DIII + 24-105mm f/4 lens at 24mm: 8 seconds at f/8 on ISO 1600
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Aurora Dance
Canon 5DIII camera with a Canon 24mm f/1.4 lens: 2 seconds at f/2 on ISO 1600
One more from the Northern Lights that I watched from my backyard last month. There was a pile of photographs from that night which I had not yet looked at. A few days ago, I worked through them and this one stood out for me.
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A late night light show
A few nights ago, the Northern Lights came out in force and extended brightly above my home in Redwood Meadows just west of Calgary. We rarely see the Aurora Borealis here, when the lights are out I usually head further west to escape the nearby city glow, but the extraterrestrial storm that night was exceptional. The Aurora rippled throughout the night, with blues and greens early on and then adding in purples and yellows as the morning approached.
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It was a wonderful evening spent in the backyard.
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Northern Lights in Redwood Meadows
Canon 5DIII camera with a Canon 24 f/1.4 lens: 1.3 seconds at f/1.8 on ISO 2500
The Northern Lights were very active last night. For three hours I was outside watching the show in the sky and it was the best I have seen so far this year. This image is from a particularly wild period where there were many streams of light rippling together beneath the stars.
If the image looks pixelated, please click the picture to open up a higher resolution version.
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Prairie Aurora
The Northern Lights on the weekend were beautiful. On Friday morning they were active from 10 pm through to 5 am Saturday morning. Fiery, green ribbons rippled under the stars with faint echoes of blue and purple streaming skyward.
(for a higher resolution version, please click on any picture)
When I received an email from Aurora Watch’s alert service, I was in Calgary finishing dinner with my friend Jack. We headed up to a hill that overlooks downtown to check the sky. Even with the orange glow in the atmosphere from the city’s lights, we could see shimmering swaths of green. That whet the appetite and we headed west along the Trans Canada Highway out of the city and into the rolling hills to the west. A small marsh south of Cochrane being our destination to take in the lights.
By the time we were at the pond, it was after midnight and the early wisps of color had intensified in color and solidity. The thick bands stretched west and east, from one horizon to the other. With the Northern Lights reflected in the water, there were some interesting images available. I also posted another photograph separately called The Phantom Menace which is a favourite of mine from the night. You can see that image here.
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The aurora was at its most discrete around 2 am with beautiful details etched into the fabric swimming between land and sky. The Cree named these colourful displays the Dance of the Spirits. I really like that. On this evening, the spirits enjoyed a long spell on their dance floor.
With the east starting to brighten ahead of the coming sunrise, we were a bit restless for another viewpoint so we followed the road west for a little while. This small industrial plant was overlooking the fields and when we stopped to have a look, the aurora was pulsing in what turned out to be the final flurry of the night.
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Last Night’s Northern Lights
The Aurora Borealis lit up for a couple of hours last night so Jack and I were out until 5 AM watching the ribbons stripe the night sky. There were few clouds and it turned out to be a very enjoyable performance.
A few images from the same night can be seen at this post.
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Autumn Aurora
I woke up this morning at 4:30, not for any particular reason I can recall. I went down for some water and saw there was an Aurora Watch Alert. The live update showed that there was a lot of Auroral activity so, at my wife’s prompting, I headed out.
In Bragg Creek we still get a fair bit of Calgary’s night city glow, so I drove northwest to a dark area of the prairie. Some clouds cleared out along the horizon as I set up and then the show picked up and kept going strong until dawn.
This was a special time under the stars for me. I have been visualizing photographing the Northern Lights and planning to get out for a couple of years. I had a fantastic time watching the streams of light streak across the sky. It was great to be able to realize what had been a little bit elusive.
So now, with this first Aurora shoot, in the rearview mirror, I’m looking forward to finding some new locations and compositions to photograph (and probably a faster f/2.8 or f/1.4 lens to shorten exposures).
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