Aurora Borealis!
11 October 2024
I don't know how many years I've been wanting to see an aurora, but it's many—I I have distinct memories of a school project that discussed the 11 year solar cycle when I was about 10 or 11. Last night, at well oer 70 years old, I finally saw one, in western Massachusetts.
What I saw wasn't great—the first two pictures here, taken just after full dark, were what I could see with my naked eye. After that, it clouded over. I stayed up far too late, though, and around 1am, though I couldn't see very much, just a few hints here and there, a camera can see a lot more, especially with long exposures.
Advice I saw online beforehand suggested f/2.8, 3 second exposures, ISO 1600. That works well for visible auroras. Later, I had to resort to longer exposures and much higher ISOs (and I had to use a camera with a small sensor), which cause grainy images. Fortunately, the "Denoise" function in Adobe Lightroom works very well.
I did lighten a few of these pictures in post-processing, especially some of the later ones with 3.2 second exposures. I did not enhance or tune the color.
I got much too little sleep last night, but oh was it worth it!
