Northern Lights
The forecast was predicted to be a Kp1. I had just planned on going out to take moonlit landscape night photography. Then this happened.
Denali Highway night
The peak of the storm lasted about 20 minutes. It was a pretty amazing to see. Incredible to photograph.
Busy night on the Knik river.This was taken around 12:45am
No wind and large bodies of water make great reflections at the swimming hole on Knik river.
This shot was the end to my night on 2/27-2/28. It was around 2:20am and the Northern lights were not showing any signs of going away. As I was getting ready to get in my truck I took this one last shot to capture the signage and northern lights. The light haze to the left of the image is a combination of Plamer/Wasilla/ Anchorage, Eagle river lights polluting the night sky.
This is a 2 picture panoramic version of my last post. I am posting this one to show the scale of what I was lucky enough to see in person. The soft white glow on the left of the horizon is the city of Palmer. To the right of it is Butte mountain. I believe that the mountains along the right side of the horizon is Matanuska Peak. What looks like a field of white snow below the horizon is a frozen Knik river.
A last little bit of color at the end of the aurora show on Friday night. This shot was taken along the Knik River on January 4, 2019
The auroras lights the beach with its ghostly glow .
Taken on the night of 9/10/2018. This was just before the Aurora storm storm really took off. The tide was just starting to go out and the wind speed was around 5mph. This made the perfect condition for a great reflection.
I was lucky to get so many awesome shots on this night. These images all were taken on the morning of January 3, 2020, near Cantwell, Alaska
The reds and greens were very vibtrant last night
As the storm died down I tried out a little light painting with my headlamp. I liked the patterns in the ice. I used my headlamp to highlight the flow patterns in the ice while the auroras danced overhead.
After weeks of no auroral activity and cloudy weather we were fortunate to have clear skies and northern lights.
The clouds slowly crept across the sky. We were fortunate to see some of the spectacular show before the clouds completely covered the sky.
This image was shot from the banks of Granite Creek, AK. It is a beautiful location that is just past Sutton, AK
The view of Knik River from Old Glenn Highway
Last shot of the night on 1/4/2019 at the Swimming Hole, AK
Norhtern lights as seen from the rocks of Bird Point, AK
STEVE made a surprise visit along side the Aurora. Making it very hard to decide on what I should shoot first. STEVE will usually hang around for about 30 minutes to an hour.
Very cool auroras last night. They were coming over the mountains in waves. It only lasted around an hour. It was around -30F with the windchill. If the show lasted any longer I probably would have frostbite, because I wasn't going anywhere until it was done.
The amazing view from Denali Highway
The northern lights looked like a a huge green fire in the sky.
Almost perfect reflection of the northern lights off of the ice of Knik River
Our aurora show was brief, but what we had was brillant. Then the clouds moved in.
This image was shot from the banks of Granite Creek, AK. It is a beautiful location that is just past Sutton, AK
The entrance road to Eklutna Tailrace had a beautiful backdrop of northern lights and milky way.
Ribbon of color streaks across the sky. Spectacular night of aurora watching on the morning of 9/11
The end to a spectacular beginning of the aurora season. This was shot around 4am, but the aurora lasted for another hour or so. Unfortunately I was too tired and needed to go to bed.
Memorable night on September 11, 2018. I was waiting on the banks of Twenty mile river for the Northern lights to appear. When suddenly STEVE appeared over the mountains. It slowly snaked its way across the sky until it reached the horizon.
A pretty incredible night. I normally don't like to shoot northern lights when the moon is out, because the moonlight will usually make the auroras less vibrant and harder to see. On this night the auroras were easily outshining the moon. In this shot I had the moon behind me, casting the long shadows of the spruce trees behind me onto the foreground.
The moonlit landscape right before the auroras really took off.
Swirl and flow of the northern lightsover the swirl and flow of the Knik River
Hunting for northern light, looking for breaks in the clouds. This image is the result of the thick clouds covering what would have been a spectacular aurora show. Added bonus was the windless reflection.
Last night I drove over two hours to Talkeetna, AK. The lights weren't as good as the night before. Which made the over two hour drive back home seem even worse than it already was.
Amazing spectacular sky over Sutton, AK
Captured the Auroras last night at Eklutna Tailrace. The conditions at Tailrace weren't idea because of the wood stove smoke that was hanging around. I was still able to get a few shots once the wind picked up and blew the smoke away briefly.
The northern lights are a pretty amazing sight to see in person. To the naked eye they aren't as brillant due to humans poor night vision, they are still quite the sight to see. On this particular night, at a KP 6, they were bright enough that I didn't need a flashlight to see in the dark.
A beautiful night of firey auroras in south central Alaska. To get to this spot I had to walk through a pretty dark forest. This time of the year the danger of running into a bear is still pretty high. The reward of being down on the beach to see this was well worth the scary walk through the woods.
Another image from the morning of 1/3/2020. At one point the colors were so intense that I had to reduce my camera settings by almost half. The moonlight really helped to light the landscape.
The beginning of the unexpected northern lights show from 1/3/2020. As I climbed over the snow drift I was surprised by two things. The lights dancing over the ountains and the bone chilling wind that hit me in the face.
My second night of Aurora hunting. The display was more vibrant than last night.
Finally got a chance to get out and capture a shot of the northern lights. Unfortunately the clouds didn't want to cooperate.
So much light in the darkness of night. The brillant glow of the auroras and the soft light coming from the milky way light the night sky over Talkeetna and Denali mountain.
One of my daughter's favorite lines from her favorite movie Frozen. "The sky's awake, so I'm awake". I think that line applies to the sky near Sutton on Thursday night.
The milky way and the auroras crossing paths along Eklutna Tailrace. I was lucky enough to arrive at this spot just as the milky way lined up with the city lights of Palmer.
Beach Bonfire 2
The small forest of Bird Point has been set ablaze with the neon fire of the auroras.