A night whale swimming in the stars
I went out chasing a cold lightning storm with the hounds a couple of nights ago. We watched some strikes from Springbank as the weather raced over Calgary. I was a long ways from the storm so only a few photographs worked out well. It didn’t matter though as the clouds trailing behind looked beautiful against the starry sky.
It was a flight of fancy when I imagined a whale swimming in the sky. A little post production work realized the image in my mind’s eye.
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Aurora Borealis Abstracts
Throughout an amazing Northern Lights display on October 7th and 8th, the sky directly overhead was a nexus point for the ripples and bands of color. I typically compose with foreground landscape elements. This time I photographed straight up repeatedly and they were some of my favorite shots of the night.
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October 8’s Brilliant Aurora: A Celestial Spectacle
The Aurora Borealis rippled under the stars on October 8th. And then again two days later. These photos are from the first storm. Faint green streaks seen from our balcony compelled us out the door.
Heading northwest for darker skies to better enjoy the performance above. The intensity grew quickly, splashing across the starscape in waves from one horizon to the other.
At a few points they faded but never for long. We stayed out for several hours and it was a scintillating show all night. Easily among the very best Northern Lights that I have ever seen. Desiree saw multiple shooting stars as well. I caught a couple but only with my eyes. That was alright with me, I was more than happy to capture the greens, blues and pink.
Their streaks, balls, ribbons and sheets of mesmerized us as they courted and danced with one another in the sky. I was excited waiting for this blast of plasma from the sun to arrive. The resulting storm was pure joy and far beyond my expectations.
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A cloud bank at dawn in Punta Cana
It was quite a while ago when we went to the Dominican Republic for a week of sun and sand. I went out photographing most mornings. As the day brightened ahead of the sunrise, this cloud took shape out of the night, slowly brightening from its head down towards the horizon. A 15 second exposure and a wide aperture helped to create a dreamy feel to this seascape.
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Highway Aurora
I photographed the Northern Lights along Highway 8 a couple nights ago. The lights traced by traffic heading into Calgary during this 30 second exposure lit the foreground in a cool way. I liked how this whole image came together.
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A Subtle Aurora
At the end of May Desirée, Karen and I chased the Northern Lights late into the night. It was cloudy in Bragg Creek so we headed west looking for open sky and active auroras.
It was not a powerful geomagnetic storm but cast some beautiful pastels in sky and onto the clouds. I’m never disappointed whenever I get to watch to watch them dance.
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Perseid Meteor Shower over Bragg Creek
Desirée and I went out to look for shooting stars last night for our favorite meteor shower of the year. The Perseids didn’t let us down and we saw a couple dozen on either side of midnight west of Bragg Creek.
The Milky Way stood out against the deep night and I was lucky to catch a few crossing that incredible arch.
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Neowise on a summer night
Desiree and I went out to photograph the Neowise comet on consecutive nights in late July before its nightly tour over the northern hemisphere ended. It was amazing to see the comet so bright. With longer exposures, the tail flared out behind in a way that I haven’t photographed before. That was beautiful and I’m glad we were out there and could share that together.
The comet was difficult to see with the naked eye. With the camera, and a 6 second exposure, it stood out even against the sparkling sky.
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Geminid Meteor Shower
Early Friday morning was the peak of Geminid meteor shower. My camera braved the wind and the cold at the separate locations south of Cochrane near the Trans-Canada Highway. Apart from setting up at each new spot and checking the gear occasionally, I stayed in my car wrapped up in a heavy blanket. The shower lived up to expectations and I saw a lot of streaks across the sky. A few of those were in the camera’s field of view.
I used 30 second exposures and then stacked each location’s set to create the star trails. I used the program StarStaX to stack the individual photographs (great program – fast, clean and free – donate if you try it and find that you like it).
To be honest, I was hoping for a few more big streaks across the scene so I’m looking forward to trying it again (next year!) Two separate flights carved through the second scene that I photographed. That looked cool though not what I was planning for. The sunrise which followed was exceptional and I will share a few of those photos soon.
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Images of the Aurora over the Elbow River
When the Northern Lights brightly lit up the sky on May 8th, I went out to a favourite spot along the Elbow River on the edge of Redwood Meadows. The river there is dotted with sets of rocks near the shore which provide interesting elements and break up the reflection in an attractive way. The landscape is beautiful and supported the main show in the sky above well. The Aurora streamed across the sky from the northern horizon to well past the zenith. The image below was taken with the camera pointing almost straight up.
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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 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.
