Trails and Tales Contest Honorable Mention
Northern lights fascinate me. Since I live in central Wisconsin, I have seen them over a dozen times so far this year (2024).
October 6 was spectacular. On the way home from church that evening, I could clearly see brilliant pillars of aurora extending thirty to forty degrees above the northern horizon. As soon as we got home, I grabbed my camera and headed outside with some of the family to see and photograph the aurora. It brightly illuminated the northern sky. We could pick out faint hues of red, and below that flickered the green. The moving pillars were hard to photograph without them streaking.
October 7, the northern sky glowed with an arc of green aurora at first, but at 9:30 the storm hit. The sky flashed with brilliant green curtains that rippled across the sky, only to be replaced by others. Then brilliant red pillars began appearing that extended to the zenith.
The next evening the aurora still lit twenty degrees of the northern sky, but I had seen northern lights so much that week and had enough late nights. I got my sleep instead.
On the morning of October 9, the aurora had intensified, but the real show was yet to come.
October 10 was expected to be severe, although Spaceweather said the storm had subsided but was still strong. As soon as darkness fell, I headed outside with my Canon to photograph the aurora. The sky was covered with a thin layer of cirrus clouds, but the aurora was still amazingly bright. For a while it was hard to convince the family to stay out and watch, but then the sky became alive. The aurora appeared to come from the zenith and flare out in every direction, the corona style of aurora.
By now the clouds seemed to have disappeared. I was busy taking pictures while the rest of the family watched in amazement, either shouting to look this direction or here or quickly take a picture of the amazing northern lights over there.
Soon the western sky grew brilliantly pink; it was so bright the color was plain on exposures as short as several seconds. Then green curtains began dancing in the northwest. Everyone was awed. Pink aurora extended all the way to the southern horizon. The aurora had brightened so fast, and I was still in the front yard with power lines dangling though my pictures!
I decided my pictures would look more spectacular if they had a nice foreground, so several of my siblings and I jumped into the truck and headed to the field. On the way, my younger sister got scared that there might be a bear there. I assured her that even if we saw a bear, it would likely be scared of us and run away.
Once we arrived at the field, I quickly ran along the edge of the woods. I had only gone several hundred feet when I heard a snort and a shuffling sound. I expected it was likely a deer, and I wanted to quickly get pictures of the aurora. But I soon noticed that one of the “deer” was climbing a tree. I turned around immediately and yelled to the children to jump into the truck. We piled in and watched as the bear climbed about 10 feet (3 m) up the trunk, keeping an eye on us.
Soon it began descending the tree. We quickly drove up to the tree. The bear scrambled up the tree, this time high enough we couldn’t see it very well. I called the rest of the family, and they soon came to watch the bear. Dead branches kept falling to the ground. The bear would peer down to see what the noise was as each branch hit the ground. My younger sister was horrified when I opened the window. She was sure the bear would come get us. Eventually I got back to taking pictures of the aurora, but it had slowed down and only several faint strands remained.
I enjoy photographing auroras although they can be challenging. I try to keep exposures less than ten seconds since I like distinct shapes.
Both May 10 and October 10, I got to see the corona aurora, which I think is the best.
“When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained; what is man…?” Truly God deserves the glory!