Magical Aurora Borealis

By katabata March 25, 2023

Aurora Borealis: dancing pretty lights

Since moving to Duluth, MN in 2017, I have yearned to see the Northern Lights. I joined the Great Lakes Aurora Hunters Facebook Group. I downloaded the SpaceWeather Live app. I allowed push notifications for anything Kp4 or higher, which could signal aurora activity is visible in my area. I've studied the Kp-indices, solar flares, solar wind speed and interplanetary magnetic field. I learned about not only the moon phases but moon rise and moon set times as optimal aurora viewing requires a minimal amount of moonlight if possible. I've bookmarked the NOAA graphical forecast page to check the sky cover for cloudy weather. I've scouted out a couple viewpoints that are unobstructed, northern facing away from the city lights. (One is a large soccer field complex, the other is a dog park without too many tall trees or buildings blocking the view.) Auroral activity: https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/auroral-activity.html

Sky cover: https://graphical.weather.gov/sectors/conus.php

Alas, if all the stars (and the moon and the clouds and the sun and the magnetic field) align and you find a good dark spot, then you might have perfect aurora viewing conditions. Thursday night was the perfect night.

I received a notification from the SpaceWeatherLive app that the Kp index was 7 around 5pm. I've only seen a 7 a few times since 2017 and all but one of them the conditions were not right: the clouds were too thick, we were out of town in the Twin Cities with too much ambient light or Yellowstone, which was too far south, and the other one we foolishly went to sleep.

Sunset was around 7:25pm. I consulted my Facebook Group to see if it was indeed real. The chatter online confirmed my excitement: tonight was going to be a great aurora night! A strong solar flare earlier in the week had made for perfect conditions. Furthermore, the sky was perfectly clear with not a cloud to be seen across the entire state. The waxing crescent moon, the first phase after a new moon, was only 4% illuminated by the sun and set to go down just after 9pm.

I told the kids to get ready; they needed their sleeping bags, a pillow, base layers, warm socks, snow pants, boots, hat, mittens and some snacks. We drove 18 miles north of Duluth to Boulder Lake Reservoir, a water-storage reservoir that supports hydroelectric power in the area. I heard this was a good dark spot but had never wanted to make the 30 minute drive unless it was going to be really good. Today, we weren't taking any chances.

We pulled up to the boat launch and the parking lot was overflowing. We turned around and parked along the side of the road and walked back to the boat landing; at least a dozen other cars were there. I grabbed the sleeping bags, picnic blankets, lawn chair, camera, tripod, bag of snacks and drinks, and headed for the beach. We trampled through some deep snow around the yellow gate to join all the other aurora hunters who were set up along the path. We walked about 50 yards and across the northern sky were 3 horizontal gray lines with gray spikes moving like a spotlight in the city. I was ecstatic! I finally saw the northern lights!!

I laid out our picnic blankets on top of the packed snow. The kids kicked off their boots and nestled in their sleeping bags on top of the blankets. Marit brought her Elephant stuffie and a pillow and Theo brought a squishmallow. I set up my tripod and attached my Canon Rebel T5i camera. Last time I had forgotten the attachment at home. Rookie mistake. I had read about how to take aurora photos but having never really seen them I had no idea what to do in the moment. I turned it on auto mode and every picture was pitch black. I made some small adjustments and thought I was increasing the exposure time. Still black.

All the pictures were dark with a hint of the moon

The lights were dancing above the horizon clearer than I had ever seen or imagined. Suddenly. the horizontal lines just disappeared. Large pillars of light boomed from the horizon up to the heavens to the west.

Pillars of light shooting up to the sky

I walked over to a woman with a camera on a tripod standing not too far from us. I asked her if she would be willing to help me with my camera. She was very kind and told me what setting she had. I changed it and it was still black. Turns out I was adjusting the self timer to 8 seconds and not the exposure. Rookie mistake again. We quickly changed it and viola! The perfect aurora settings: manual, adjust the ISO to either 800 or 1600, zoom out, change the aperture or F stop to 3.5, and increase the exposure to 8 seconds. We sat there for over an hour as the lights came back on and swirled and twinkles and danced around us. It was magical! I will never forget it.