Tag Archives: aurora

Experiencing the Northern Lights from Dell City, Texas

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Earlier this month, we were very lucky and happened to be at my favorite dark sky site – Dell City, Texas – when I got an alert on my phone that we might have a Kp8 geomagnetic storm coming the next day, with a chance to see the Northern Lights much lower than usual.

I have the app on my phone because we’ve traveled to places where seeing the Northern Lights was possible.  We even saw them on the horizon from Inverness, Scotland.  We’ve also been on two trips where Northern Lights tours were on the agenda – but both tours were cancelled due to weather.  Earlier this year, when there was another big geomagnetic storm, we went north to Conroe, Texas where people reported seeing the lights.  I found a great foreground – but alas, no lights.

So imagine my delight when I was setting up my telescope in Dell City, Texas, where the skies are very familiar to me, and I looked up and saw moving red lights to the north.  Red lights to the north are not normal.  The Northern Lights were visible from Texas!  I literally sprinted into our Air B&B to get my husband and my camera.

I took glamour shots of my telescope with the aurora.

I took glamour shots of our Air B&B with the aurora.

I made some time lapse movies.

Camera geek info:

  • Canon EOS 60D in manual mode, 5 – 10 second exposures, ISO 1600
  • Rokinon 14 mm f2.8 lens, manual focus
  • Intervalometer
  • Tripod

And I’m left with the question: when can we see this again?  It was amazing.

What amazing things have you seen recently?

Northern Lights, Inverness, Scotland, 3 AM

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Whenever I am north, I always check two things: what is the geomagnetic activity and is the sky dark and clear?

We were in Scotland last week visiting our son and travelled to Inverness to see the sights up there. We scouted out a good aurora viewing spot (on the 5th floor of a parking garage) just in case. The sky was clear. I knew the geomagnetic activity would need to be at least kp 5 to have a chance of seeing anything, especially from the city. I set my alarm for 3 AM because that was when the predictions said we might have enough activity. I checked the aurora web site and saw this:

AuroraPredict20171108

Geomagnetic activity above kp 6! A G2 geomagnetic storm!

It was cold, but we went outside. It looked like there was a green glow around the moon.

I had my tiny travel tripod, and it did not reach high enough to see the horizon over the parking garage walls. But there was a handy grit container that I could put the tripod over to see over the wall.

I had read that unless you are very far north, the lights are not overhead but on the horizon, so I aimed my camera at the northern horizon.

Originally, the light was dim, but then it got brighter and it was green and it moved! What a treat! Then it went away, and it was time to get out of the cold and get a little more sleep before our tour in the morning.

Unfortunately, we did not get to see the Northern Lights again on this trip.  I hope to see them again sometime in the future!

Camera geek info:

Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/5.6, 8 second exposure, ISO 1250

Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 lens, set at 10 mm, manual focus at infinity

Tripod

Cable release

Movie geek info:

Pictures cropped to use lower right quarter

Title screen 2 sec, other pictures 0.5 sec