aurora – Jennifer Sawicky Photography

Mother Nature has certainly not been cooperating with my plans to get out and shoot at night. While I still have images from Joshua Tree that I would like to work through, I thought I would switch it up this week and edit some old images instead.

This image was shot at Green Lake in Whistler BC. I was in the area for a multi-day wedding celebration, and set up my camera to take images to create a star trail while I sat around a fire drinking beer and enjoying the company of good friends. This was done with my first DSLR camera, a Nikon D5100. I still think I am pretty lucky that I didn’t tumble into the lake when I went to collect my tripod later in the evening 🙂

_DSC0018 — I’ve not kept up to date with it recently, but in the past I have tried checking in with a northern lights forecasting site, and if the forecast is good and the weather clear, I’d head out and with my camera and see if I could see anything. The lights were very faint on this night, but I think the combination of the faint purple glow and the warm tint to the clouds from highway lights in the distance looks pretty.

_DSC0523 — The best evening I have viewed northern lights I saw a proton arc form and dissolve over about a half hour period… all from my driveway. The milky way appears faintly above as well.

_DSC0512 copy — The proton arc as it was forming.

_DSC0493 — A beautiful combination of magenta and green.

_DSC0049-Edit — No northern lights in this one, just a starry sky enhanced by some whispy clouds illuminated by the rising moon.

The aurora forecast looked promising last night, so I decided to try and stay up and see if I could see anything. I am surprised with how great the photos turned out, as frankly it wasn’t as vibrant to my eye as it was to the camera. But, it wasn’t really dark yet either, at least at the start.

I didn’t know what it was until I saw it mentioned on some other people’s photos, but I captured a proton arc last night as well!

Most of the streaks through the photos are satellites, but there was one brilliant meteor that passed through as well. Unfortunately, it rained yesterday afternoon and the evening was quite damp, and I ended up with some condensation on my lens on the later photos, which put halos around the brightest of the stars.

All in all though, I am really, really pleased I stayed up! I hope you enjoy, have a great evening!