Northern Lights

There exist websites that forecast the likelihood of seeing the northern lights.  Despite being in Alaska for a week last year where the prediction was occasionally high, I’ve never seen them.  On our second night at the lodge, the prediction was once again fairly good, so most of us set our alarms to wake up in the middle of the night and look for them.  And once again, my hopes were dashed.  My camera was all set up, so I decided to take some photos for star trails in the dark, clear night sky…

The next night’s forecast was not as good, so we didn’t set any alarms.  However, I woke up and went to the bathroom about 1:30 AM, and decided to peek outside.  And there they were.  I took a couple of 20-second (ISO 800, f/5.6) exposures, then woke my friends before returning to my camera to take a handful more exposures.  A friend of mine staying in Denali (several hundred miles north) that week said they were wonderful up there.