The city lights of Anchorage are glowing brightly behind a patch of cattails. While the auroras dance overhead. I focused my camera on the cattails and the long shadows created by the moon off to my left. Intentionally putting the background slightly out of focus.
When the aurora has to compete with a nearly full moon, the aurora usually suffers by way of color fade. Even though this was a very strong aurora it could not match the moon's intensity. I call this Moon Fade.
Surprise auroras last night/this morning at 3ish am. I grabbed my winter gear and dashed out the door at around 2:45am. It took me about 10 minutes to get to this spot, but just as I did the lights begin to become more active. With the almost full moon shining bright, the auroras really had to try hard to be seen. I think they did okay. Added bonus in the foreground was finding this windswept patterns in the snow to compliment the background
