Northern Lights
Last April I was driving back to my house on dark but clear night when all of a sudden noticed bright beams of light shooting up from the mountains on my right. I could clearly see them even with my headlights on high beam, and immediately thought someone must be driving their quads along the old logging roads and shining their spotlights into the sky. This sounds pretty silly to me now, but it was so bright and obvious. I pulled the truck over and shut the headlights off, and then realized I was looking at a northern lights show!
Here in North Idaho we are far enough south that our chances of seeing them are much slimmer than our friends farther north in Canada. As fast as I could I ran home and grabbed my camera and tripod and drove across to the lake. By this time the most intense colors had already started to weaken, but when I opened my shutter for 20 seconds the colors were still vibrant! The red color of northern lights is not seen as often, and occurs when their is especially strong solar activity. The reds are also typically only visible and altitudes of 150 miles or higher. This is the reason that when northern lights are visible in Idaho, we are often treated with some reds and pinks near the top of the display.
Seeing the northern lights is incredible, and makes a night under the stars even more awe inspiring than normal!
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Creating authentic outdoor and landscape photography primarily in the Western United States. Featuring a beautiful portfolio of stock photos that portray some of the earth's most peaceful and quiet areas, and portraying rural life at its best!
Amazing, I need to witness this for myself!
I haven't got to see it many times, but I am always hoping! I have an app called called Aurora that notifies me when the KP index is high and let's me know there is a possibility of seeing them in my location.
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Nice photos! I wish I could see them in southern Minnesota, but they have to be pretty spectacular for that. They're often visible from the northern part of the state, though!
Yeah! I used to live in the north and remember seeing them from time to time.
I can see that you also had an amazing adventure! From my experience it comes out that even if there is no strong activity 'above you' but the KP index gives some hope, it's a good idea to check it with camera by making sample pictures toward north... With the naked eye it may be not noticable as it may looks like a greenish cloud, but on the camera will look pretty awesome!
It is such an addictive pastime chasing the lights . Glad you got to see them.