Since I arrived in Alberta I have been waiting for the opportunity to photograph the Aurora Borealis. I have been wanting to try and photograph them for years, but we are still a few years from solar max, so the night sky has been pretty quiet.

I had signed up for auroral activity email alerts to let me know when they may be visible and it paid off. Friday night at about 11:00 PM I checked my email and saw the possibility of aurora so I checked some space weather sites (Canadian Space Weather www.spaceweather.gc.ca/forecastmap_e.php and www.spaceweather.com) and saw that the sky show was on!

(the auroral activity ring that night)

I quickly packed up my tripod, camera, some warm clothes and headed off to a friends farm. I knew he was a poor shot so I would be safe walking around behind his house. I spent a couple hours out getting pictures from different locations. That time of night it is very quiet except for the distant howling of the coyotes.

Usually I was taking 30 second exposures and the camera would do a noise reduction for another 30 seconds. So I had a lot of very quiet minutes to just watch and contemplate God’s beautiful creation and thank him for the opportunity to witness it.

After awhile the auroral display started to calm down to just a dim green glow so I packed it in and was home around 2:30 AM. Late night, but definitely worth staying out.

If you would like to see more of my photography of the night sky and Northern Lights, go to my Astrophotography gallery