On August 7, 2022 we were treated to a fine aurora and a superb showing of the anomalous STEVE arc across the sky.
Where I live in southern Alberta we are well positioned to see a variety of so-called “sub-auroral” phenomena — effects in the upper atmosphere associated with auroras but that appear south of the main auroral arc, thus the term “sub-auroral.”
An arc of a Kp-5 aurora early in the evening just starting a show, but with a fading display of noctilucent clouds low in the north as well.
The main auroral band typically lies over Northern Canada, at latitudes 58° to 66°, though it can move south when auroral activity increases. However, on August 7, the Kp Index was predicted to reach Kp5, on the Kp 0 to 9 scale, so moderately active, but not so active it would bring the aurora right over me at latitude 51° N, and certainly not down over the northern U.S., which normally requires Kp6 or higher levels.
An arc of a Kp-5 aurora over a wheatfield from home in southern Alberta. The panorama takes in the northern stars, from the Big Dipper and Ursa Major at left, to the W of Cassiopeia at top right of centre, with Perseus below Cassiopeia, and Andromeda and Pegasus at right.
So with Kp5, the aurora always appeared in my sky this night to the north, though certainly in a fine display, as I show above.
However, at Kp5, the amount of energy being pumped into the magnetosphere and atmosphere around Earth is high enough to trigger (through mechanisms only beginning to be understood) some of the unique phenomena that occur south of the main aurora. These often appear right over me. That was the case on August 7.
This is a telephoto lens panorama of a low and late-season display of noctilucent clouds in the north on August 7, 2022. This was the latest I had seen NLCs from my latitude of 51° N.
I captured the above panoramas of the aurora early in the night, when we also were treated to a late season display of noctilucent clouds low in the north. These are high altitude water-vapour clouds up almost as high as the aurora. They are common in June and July from here (we are also in an ideal latitude for seeing them). But early August was the latest I had ever sighted NLCs.
A display of a Kp-5 aurora near its peak of activity on August 7, 2022, taken from home in southern Alberta, over the wheatfield next to my acreage. STEVE appeared later this night. Moonlight from the waxing gibbous Moon low in the southwest illuminates the scene.
As the NLCs faded, the auroral arc brightened, promising a good show, in line with the predictions (which don’t always come true!). The main aurora reached a peak in activity about 11:30 pm MDT, when it was bright and moving along the northern and northeastern horizon. It then subsided in brightness and structure, giving the impression the show was over.
But that’s exactly when STEVE can — and this night did! — appear.
A portrait of the infamous STEVE arc of hot flowing gas associated with an active aurora, here showing his distinctive pink colour and the fleeting appearance of the green picket fence fingers that often show up hanging down from the main arc.
Sure enough, about 12:15 am, a faint arc appeared in the east, which slowly extended to cross the sky, passing straight overhead. This was STEVE, short for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.
STEVE is not an aurora per se, which is caused by electrons raining down from the magnetosphere. STEVE is a ribbon of hot (~3000°) gas flowing east to west. STEVE typically appears for no more than an hour, often less, before he fades from view.
A fish-eye view looking straight up. On this night the green fingers lasted no more than two minutes.
At his peak, STEVE is often accompanied by green “picket-fence” fingers hanging down from the main pink band, which also have a westward rippling motion. These do seem to be caused by vertically moving electrons.
This night I shot with three cameras, with lenses from 21mm to 7.5mm, including two fish-eye lenses needed to capture the full extent of sky-spanning STEVE. I shot still, time-lapses, and real-time videos, compiled below.
Amateur photos like mine have been used to determine the height of STEVE, which seems to be 250 to 300 km, higher than the main components of a normal aurora. Indeed, previous images of mine have formed parts of the data sets for two research papers, with me credited as a citizen scientist co-author.
A closeup of the STEVE arc of hot flowing gas associated with an active aurora.
STEVE is a unique example of citizen scientists working with the professional researchers to solve a mystery that anyone who looks up at the right time and from the right place can see. August 7-8, 2022 and my backyard in Alberta was such a time and place.
A dim Perseid meteor (at top) streaking near the Milky Way on the night of Aug 7-8, 2022, taken as part of a time-lapse set for the STEVE auroral arc in frame as the pink band.
As a bonus, a few frames recorded Perseid meteors, with the annual shower becoming active.
For a video compilation of some of my stills and videos from the night, see this Vimeo video.
A 2.5-minute music video of stills, time-lapses, and real-time videos of STEVE from August 7-8, 2022.
It was a fabulous week of clear skies and dancing auroras in and around Yellowknife in Canada’s North.
For the second year in a row I traveled due north from home in Alberta to visit Yellowknife, capitol of Canada’s Northwest Territories. At a latitude of 62° North, Yellowknife lies directly under the auroral oval and so enjoys views of the Northern Lights on almost every clear night.
During my 8-night stay from September 3 to 10 almost every night was clear and filled with auroras.
Somba K’e Park
The Lights can be seen even from within the downtown core, as the opening image shows, taken from the urban Sombe K’e Park looking over Frame Lake and the Prince of Wales Museum.
The Museum is lit with rippling bands of coloured light that emulate the aurora borealis.
Pilot’s Monument
A favourite urban site for viewing the Lights is the Pilot’s Monument lookout in the middle of Yellowknife’s Oldtown district. This panorama sweeps from northeast at left to west at far right, looking mostly south over the downtown core.
This night even the urban lights were not enough to wash out the Lights as they brightened during a brief substorm.
This is a 300° panorama of the Northern Lights over Yellowknife, NWT on the night of Sept 6-7, 2019, during a sub-storm outbreak at 12:45 a.m. when the sky went wild with aurora. This is a 9-segment panorama with the 15mm Laowa lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 800, for 10 seconds each.
Rotary Park
Another good urban site that gets you away from immediate lights is the open spaces of Rotary Park overlooking the houseboats anchored in Yellowknife Bay. This panorama again sweeps from east to west, looking toward to the waxing Moon low in the south.
Again, despite the urban lights and moonlight, the Lights were spectacular.
A 240° panorama of the Northern Lights from the Boardwalk in the urban Rotary Park in Yellowknife, NWT, on Sept 10, 2019. A waxing gibbous Moon is bright to the south and lights the sky and landscape. This is a 7-segment panorama, each segment 8 seconds at f/2 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 1600. Stitched with Adobe Camera Raw.
Prosperous Lake
The main viewing sites for the Northern Lights are down Highway 4, the Ingraham Trail east of the city away from urban lights.. One of the closest stops is a parking lot on the shore of a backwater bay of Prosperous Lake. It’s where many tourist buses stop and unload their passengers, mostly to get their selfies under the Lights.
But with patience you can get your own photos unencumbered by other lights and people, as I show below.
A group of aurora tourists take their aurora selfies at Prosperous Lake, near Yellowknife, NWT, a popular spot on the Ingraham Trail for aurora watching. This was about 1:15 a.m. MDT. This is a single 5-second exposure with the 20mm Sigma Art lens at f/2 and Nikon D750 at ISO800.
The Northern Lights over the end of Prosperous Lake, on the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife, NWT, a popular spot for aurora watching in the area. This is a single 8-second exposure with the Sigma 20mm lens at f/2 and Nikon D750 at ISO 800.
On one of my nights I stopped at Prosperous on the way to sites farther down Ingraham Trail to catch the twilight colours in the stunningly clear sky.
Twilight at Prosperous Lake on the Ingraham Trail, near Yellowknife, NWT, Sept. 7, 2019. The colours are accentuated by volcanic ash in the atmosphere.
Madeline Lake
This small lake and picnic site farther along the Trail serves as a great place to shoot the Lights reflected in the calm waters and looking north. I spent one of my nights at Madeline Lake, a popular spot for local residents to have a campfire under the Lights.
Enjoying a campfire on a fine September Saturday night under the brightening Northern Lights, at Madeline Lake on the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife. This is a single 10-second exposure with the 20mm Sigma lens at f/2 and Nikon D750 at ISO 800.
And it’s popular for tour buses, whose headlights shine out across the lake as they arrive through the night, in this case casting my long shadow across the misty lake.
A novelty shot of the shadow of me and my tripod projected across a misty Madeline Lake by car headlights from arriving aurora tourists at this popular spot on the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife. This was September 7, 2019. A single exposure.
A group of aurora tourists take in the show at Madeline Lake, on the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife, NWT, a popular spot for the busloads of visitors being shuttled around each night. The Big Dipper is at centre. This is a single exposure, 6 seconds at ISO 3200 with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 and Sony a7III.
However, again with patience it is possible to get clean images of the aurora and its reflections in the lake.
Reflections of the Northern Lights in the calm and misty waters of Madeline Lake on the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife, NWT on Sept 7, 2019. This is one of a series of “reflection” images. The Big Dipper is at left. Capella is at right. This is a single 13-second exposure with the 15mm Laowa lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 1600.
Reflections of the Northern Lights in the calm waters of Madeline Lake on the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife, NWT on Sept 7, 2019. This is one of a series of “reflection” images. The Big Dipper is at left; Capella at far right. This is a single 8-second exposure with the 15mm Laowa lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 1600.
The Northern Lights in a subtle but colourful display over the still waters of Madeline Lake on the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife, NWT. This was the night of September 7-8, 2019. This is a 4-segment panorama, each 13 seconds at ISO 1600 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens at f/2 and Sony a7III camera.
The Ramparts
Farther down the Trail is a spot the tour buses will not go to as a visit to the Ramparts waterfall on the Cameron River requires a hike down a wooded trail, in the dark with bears about. Luckily, my astrophoto colleague, amateur astronomer, and local resident Stephen Bedingfield joined me for a superb shoot with us the only ones present at this stunning location.
Photographer Stephen Bedingfield is shooting the Northern Lights at the Ramparts waterfalls on the Cameron River, September 8, 2019. This is a single 8-second exposure with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 3200.
The Northern Lights over the waterfalls known as the Ramparts on the Cameron River east of Yellowknife, NWT, on September 8, 2019. This is a single exposure of 20 seconds with the 15mm Laowa lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 1600, blended with two light painted exposures of the same duration but with the water illuminated to make it more white.
The view looking the other way north over the river was equally wonderful. What a place for viewing the Northern Lights!
The Northern Lights in an arc across the northern sky over the Cameron River, downriver from the Ramparts Falls. This was September 8, 2019 with the trees turning in their fall colours. The Big Dipper at top centre. This is a two-segment panorama, each 25 seconds at f/2 with the Laowa 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 800. Stitched with ACR.
The view from a viewpoint early on the trail down to the Ramparts and overlooking the Cameron River yielded a superb scene with the low Moon and twilight providing the illumination as the Lights kicked up early in the evening.
The curtains of an early evening aurora starting to dance in the twilight and with the western sky lit by moonlight from the waxing gibbous Moon low in the sky and off-frame to the right. This is from the Cameron River viewpoint off the Ramparts falls trail on the Ingraham trail near Yellowknife. This is a single 15-second exposure with the 15mm Laowa lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 1600.
Prelude Lake
A favourite spot is the major camping and boat launch area of Prelude Lake Territorial Park. But to avoid the crowds down by the shoreline, Stephen and I hiked up to the overlook above the lake looking north. A few other ardent photographers joined us. This was another spectacular and perfect night.
An arc of Northern Lights appears in the evening twilight over Prelude Lake near Yellowknife, NWT, on September 9, 2019. This is a single 25-second exposure at f/2 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 800.
September is a superb time to visit as the lakes are still open and the autumn colours make for a good contrast with the sky colours.
The panorama below takes in the Big Dipper at left, Capella at centre, and with the Pleiades and Hyades rising at right of centre.
The arc of Northern Lights starting a show in the deep twilight over Prelude Lake on the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife, NWT. This was September 9, 2019. Light from the waxing gibbous Moon behind the camera also illuminates the scene. This is a 5-segment panorama with the 15mm Laowa lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 800 and all at 25 seconds. Stitched with PTGui, as ACR and Photoshop refused to joint the left segments.
I used the 8mm fish-eye lens to capture the entire sky, the only way you can really take in the whole scene on camera. When the Lights fill the sky you don’t know which way to look or aim your camera!
A 360° fish-eye view of the Northern Lights over Prelude Lake near Yellowknife, NWT, Canada, on September 9, 2019, with photographers in the foreground shooting the Lights from the viewpoint above the lake. Polaris is near the centre; the Big Dipper and Ursa Major are at lower left; Cassiopeia is at upper right. Andromeda and Pegasus are rising at far right. Arcturus is setting at far left. This is a single shot with the 8mm Sigma lens at f/3.5 on the Sony a7III for 10 seconds at ISO 3200. Moonlight also provides some of the illumination. Accent AI filter applied to the ground with Topaz Studio 2.0
A 360° fish-eye view of the Northern Lights over Prelude Lake near Yellowknife, NWT, Canada, on September 9, 2019. Polaris is near the centre; the Big Dipper and Ursa Major are at lower left; Cassiopeia is at upper right. Andromeda and Pegasus are rising at far right. Arcturus is setting at far left. This is a single shot with the 8mm Sigma lens at f/3.5 on the Sony a7III for 20 seconds at ISO 1000. Moonlight also provides some of the illumination. Accent AI filter applied to the ground with Topaz Studio 2.0
There are many other scenic spots along the Trail, such as Pontoon Lake, Reid Lake, and Tibbitt Lake at the very end of Ingraham Trail. For images and movies I shot last year at Tibbitt Lake, see my blog post at Aurora Reflections in Yellowknife.
But in my 8 nights in Yellowknife this year I managed to hit many of the key aurora spots for photography and viewing. I recommend a visit, especially in September before autumn clouds roll in later in the season, and while the lakes are not frozen and nighttime temperatures are mild.
Here’s a 3-minute music video of clips I shot from all these sites showing the motion of the Lights as it appeared to the eye in “real-time,” not sped up or in time-lapse.
The Northern Lights of Yellowknife from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
As I do a couple of times a year, earlier this month I was cruising the coast of Norway chasing the Northern Lights – successfully!
One of my “retirement gigs” is to serve as a lecturer for the educational travel company Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) on some of their aurora cruises along the Norwegian coast on one of the Hurtigruten ferry ships.
This time, as I was last autumn, I was on Hurtigruten’s flagship coastal ferry, the m/s Trollfjord.
The Northern Lights over the Norwegian Sea south of the small fishing village of Oksfjord, from the Hurtigruten ferry ship the m/s Trollfjord on the northbound voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes. This was during a minor geomagnetic storm producing an all-sky aurora with a Kp Index however of no more Kp 3 – 4 this night. A break in the clouds allowed a glimpse of the Lights for about an hour at 11 pm. This is looking north. This is a single 1.6-second exposure at f/2 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 6400. Ship motion inevitably adds some star trailing.
Our tour group was treated to five fine nights with auroras, an unusually good take out of the 12-day round trip cruise from Bergen to Kirkenes and back to Bergen. Our first look, above, was on February 27, but through cloud.
Swirls of auroral curtains over Båtsfjord, Norway while we were in port on the southbound portion of the Hurtigruten coastal cruise on the ms Trollfjord. This was March 1, 2019. The stars of Taurus and the Pleiades are at left; Cassiopeia at upper right. This is a single 0.8-second exposure at f/2 with the 15mm Venus Optics lens and Sony a7III at ISO 1600.
But after we reached the top end at Kirkenes and turned around for the southbound voyage, skies cleared remarkably. We had a wonderful four clear days and nights in a row, all with Northern Lights.
Auroral curtains in an overhead coronal burst swirling at the zenith during a fine display on March 1, 2019, as seen from the deck of the Hurtigruten ferry ship the ms Trollfjord, while in port in Båtsfjord, Norway. The Big Dipper is at upper right; Cassiopeia at lower left, and Polaris in the centre amid the aurora. This is a single 1-second exposure at f/2 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 3200. It was taken from port with the ship stationary and amid the port lights.
The best show was March 1, and when we were in port in the northern coastal village of Båtsfjord. The Lights danced overhead in the best show I had seen from Norway.
The Northern Lights over the village of Skjervøy on the northern coast of Norway north of Tromsø. Taken from the deck of the Hurtigruten ship the ms Trollfjord while in port, March 2, 2019. Looking west with Cassiopeia at right and the Pleiades at left. This is a blend of two exposures: a long 4-second exposure for the sky and aurora, and a short 0.8-second exposure for the ground and city lights. All at f/2 with the 15mm Venus Optics lens and Sony a7III at ISO 800.
The next night we got a good show while we were in the port of Skjervøy.
As we continued south we emerged out from under the auroral oval zone, placing the Lights to the north, back in the direction we had come from.
A self-portrait on the back deck of the ms Trollfjord, southbound out of Berlevag this night and under the Northern Lights.
Aurora photographers and observers on the rear deck 9 area of the Hurtigruten ferry ship the ms Trollfjord on the southbound voyage along the Norwegian coast, on March 2, 2019. This is a single 1.6-second exposure at f/2 with the 15mm Venus Optics lens and Sony a7III at ISO 6400.
Curtains of Northern Lights over the Hurtigruten ferry ship the ms Trollfjord on March 1, 2019. This is a single 1.6-second exposure at f/2 with the 15mm Venus Optics lens and Sony a7III at ISO 10000.
A low arc of aurora late in the voyage south on March 4, 2019, our last sighting for the cruise, after we crossed the Arctic Circle. A single exposure at ISO 10000 due to the large motion of the ship. The smoke from the ship is at top, illuminated by the funnel lights that were not turned off this night.
An example of multiple concentric auroral curtains, here over the Norwegian coast on the southbound Hurtigruten ship ms Trollfjord on March 2, 2019. This is a single 1.6-second exposure at f/2 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 10000.
Equally spectacular in my mind were some of the sunsets and twilight skies we enjoyed as we sailed through the Lofoten Islands, including on our visit to the narrow Trollfjord fjord for which the ship is named.
Sunset in Norway from the ms Trollfjord on the southbound voyage, on March 2, 2019.
The mouth of the Trollfjord in the Lofoten Islands, Norway, at twilight taken from the forward Deck 6 of the ms Trollfjord, the Hurtigruten ferry ship named for the narrow fjord. This is a 4-section handheld panorama with the Venus Optics 15mm lens at f/8 and Sony a7III camera at ISO 100. Stitched with ACR.
A panorama of the Raftsundet Strait at sunset with alpenglow on the peaks and evening twilight colours to the right at the sunset point. This was March 3, 2019 on the southbound voyage on the ms Trollfjord as we approached the Trollfjord itself. This is a 7-section panorama, handheld, with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III, stitched with ACR.
On our aurora nights I mostly shot “real-time” video of the Lights, using the low-light capability and 4K functions of the Sony a7III camera. The result is a music video linked to below.
The Northern Lights At Sea from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
I hope you enjoy it. Do view it full-screen and at 4K resolution.
For details on this cruise (I’ll be on the October 10 trip this fall) see the Road Scholar page for this Arctic Skies trip. Autumn is a spectacular time in the fjords and along the coast, as the mountainsides are in fall colours.
For 11 non-stop nights in February we had clear skies and Northern Lights in Churchill.
Every year in winter I visit Churchill, Manitoba to attend to groups of aurora tourists at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. Few groups (indeed only two over the 35 years the program has been offered) go away having not seen the Lights during the 5-night program.
Guests in the Learning Vacations program at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre view the aurora on their first night of the program for 2019 on January 31. This is looking east, with the Big Dipper at left and Orion at right.
But this year was the opposite exception. Even locals were impressed by the run of clear nights and displays in early February. It was non-stop Northern Lights!
A photographer and volunteer at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre (Brian) shoots the aurora from up the Rocket Range Road at the Centre. This was Feb 8, 2019 on a brutal night with brisk winds and high wind chills. This is a single exposure with the 15mm lens and Sony a7III.
Having auroras in Churchill isn’t unusual. It is located right under the auroral oval, so if it’s clear it would be unusual not to have some level of auroral activity.
One of a short series of images showing the development of an aurora display from a classic arc into a more complex pattern of concentric arcs and with loops and swirls. This was Feb 5, 2019 from the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. The outburst lasted only 5 minutes or so and might have been due to the Bz interplanetary field turning south briefly. After this series, the display faded and fractured into faint arcs and a diffuse glow across the sky. This is a single exposure with the 12mm Rokinon full-frame fish-eye and Nikon D750.
But particles from a coronal hole at the Sun fired up the lights and gave us good shows every night, often starting early in evening, rather than at midnight as is typically the case. The shows pre-empted my evening lectures!
A classic arc of aurora over the Northern Studies Centre near Churchill, Manitoba, on Feb 8, 2019. This was a night when both our Road Scholar group and a visiting Natural Habitat group was here. This is a single exposure with the 15mm lens and Sony a7III.
With shows every night, people soon got pretty fussy about what they’d get excited about. Some nights people viewed displays just from their bedroom windows!
A view of the weak (by Churchill standards) aurora display on Feb 3, 2019 as seen through my dormitory window at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, to demonstrate how you can see the Lights from your room looking north.
Displays that on night one they would be thrilled with, by night four they were going back to bed awaiting a call later when “it gets really good!”
A band of subtly coloured aurora over the snowy trees of the northern boreal forest, Churchill, Manitoba. This was Feb 9/10, 2019. Cassiopeia is at left. This is looking north. This is a single 6-second exposure with the Venus Optics 15mm lens at f/2 and Sony A7III at ISO 3200.
While auroras were active every night, the Lights showed little in the way of varied colours. Notably absent was any of the deep red from high altitude oxygen. The aurora particles were just not energetic enough I presume, a characteristic of solar minimum displays.
An all-sky aurora over the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, captured with a fish-eye lens, Feb 2, 2019. This is looking northwest. This is a single 8-second exposure with the Sigma 8mm lens at f/3.5 and Sony a7III at ISO 3200.
Increasingly, as we enter into the depths of solar minimum, with a prolonged lull expected for the next few years, aurora chasers will have to travel north to the Arctic and to the auroral oval to see displays on demand. The Lights won’t come to us!
A display of subtly coloured curtains over the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, on February 9, 2019. The curtains exhibited rapid rippling this night. This is 6 seconds at f/2 with the 15mm Venus Optic lens and Sony a7III at ISO 3200.
We did see fringes of pink at times along the bottom of the auroral curtains from glowing nitrogen molecules, but even this was subtle to the eye, though obvious to the camera.
The nitrogen pinks are usually accompanied by rapid dancing motions that are amazing to watch.
The music video linked to below provides the best view of what we saw. It is made entirely of real-time video, not time-lapses, of the Lights as seen over several nights from the Studies Centre.
The video is in 4K, so do click through for the best viewing. And the Vimeo page provides more details about the video and the techniques.
Enjoy!
The Sky is Dancing from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
If you are interested in attending one of the CNSC’s sessions — where you eat, sleep, learn, and view the Lights from a well-appointed and comfortable research centre at a dark site, check out the Study Centre’s “Learning Vacations” offerings.
The next sessions for the aurora are a year from now in February and March 2020. I’ll be there!
The Northern Lights are amazing from Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories.
A handful of locations in the world are meccas for aurora chasers. Yellowknife is one of them and, for me, surprisingly accessible with daily flights north.
In a two-hour flight from Calgary you can be at latitude 62° North and standing under the auroral oval with the lights dancing overhead every clear night.
The attraction of going in early September, as I did, is that the more persistent clouds of late autumn have not set in, and the many lakes and rivers are not yet frozen, making for superb photo opportunities.
A faint green and red auroral curtain to the northwest over Tibbitt Lake on the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife, NWT. The Big Dipper is right of centre; Arcturus setting on the horizon. This was September 8, 2018. This is a mean-combined stack of 8 exposures for the ground and water to smooth noise, and a single exposure for the sky, all 25 seconds at f/2 with the 15mm Laoawa lens and Sony A7III at ISO 1600.
A display of Northern Lights starting up in the twilight, over the river leading out of Tibbitt Lake, at the end of the Ingraham Trail near Yellowknife NWT, on September 8, 2018. This was the start of a fabulous display this night. Capella and Auriga are at left; the Pleiades is rising left of centre; the Andromeda Galaxy is at top. This is a mean-combined stack of 7 exposures for the ground to smooth noise and one exposure for the sky and partially for the reflection, all 25 seconds at f/2.5 with the 14mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 1600.
A single image from a time-lapse sequence, of the auroral curtains converging toward the zenith during the display on September 8/9, 2018, from near Yellowknife, NWT. The curtains show some fringes of pink from nitrogen. This is 2.5 seconds at f/2.8 with the 12mm Rokinon full-frame fish-eye lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.
A single image from a time-lapse sequence, of the auroral curtains converging toward the zenith during the display on September 8/9, 2018, from near Yellowknife, NWT. This is 2.5 seconds at f/2.8 with the 12mm Rokinon full-frame fish-eye lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.
Lakes down Highway 4, the Ingraham Trail, such as Prosperous, Prelude, and Pontoon are popular spots for the busloads of tourists who fly in every year from around the world.
On one magical night I and my local host and guide, Stephen Bedingfield, went to the end of the Trail, to where the Ice Road begins, to Tibbitt Lake, and had the site to ourselves. The aurora was jaw-dropping that night.
On other nights with less certain prospects I stayed in town, and still got a fine show on several nights, the Lights so bright they show up well even from within urban Yellowknife.
A curtain of aurora sweeps over the houseboats moored on Yellowknife Bay in Yellowknife, NWT, on September 11, 2018. The Pleiades and Hyades star clusters in Taurus are rising at left. This is a mean-combined stack of 8 images to smooth noise for the ground and water, and a single exposure for the sky and houseboats themselves (as they were moving slightly from exposure to exposure). Each was 13 seconds at f/2 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 3200.
A selfie portrait under an all-sky display of Northern Lights in the city of Yellowknife, from the boardwalk at Rotary Park. This was on the night of Sept. 10/11, 2018 during a major solar storm, but in the subsiding hours after the sky cleared at about 2 am. The Big Dipper is at right. The Summer Triangle is at left. Cassiopeia is at the zenith. The view is looking northwest at centre. This is a mean stack of 6 exposures smoothed to reduce noise for the ground and one exposure for the sky and me, all 6 seconds at f/3.5 with the Sigma 8mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 3200. The focus is soft.
An all-sky display of Northern Lights in the city of Yellowknife, from the end of the boardwalk at Rotary Park looking over the bay. This was on the night of Sept. 10/11, 2018 during a major solar storm, but in the subsiding hours after the sky cleared at about 2 am. The winter stars of Taurus and Gemini are rising. The Big Dipper is at far left. Cassiopeia is at the zenith. The view is looking east at centre. This is a mean stack of 8 exposures smoothed to reduce noise for the ground and one exposure for the sky, all 6 seconds at f/3.5 with the Sigma 8mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 3200. The focus is soft.
The Northern Lights over the “United in Celebration” sculpture at the Somba K’e Civic Plaza on Frame Lake in downtown Yellowknife, NWT, on September 14, 2018. The Prince of Wales Museum is at far right. This is a stack of 5 images for the ground to smooth noise and one image for the sky, all 6 seconds at f/2 with the 15mm Laoawa lens and Sony a7III at ISO 400.
On another night we chased into clear skies down Highway 3 to the west, to a rocky plateau on the Canadian Precambrian Shield. Even amid the clouds, the aurora was impressive.
But it was the night at Tibbitt that was the highlight.
Here is the finale music video from movies shot that night, September 8, 2018, with two cameras: the Sony a7III used to take “real-time” 4K videos of the aurora motion, and the Nikon D750 used to take time-lapses.
The movie is in 4K. The music, Eternal Hope, is by Steven Gutheinz and is used by permission of West One Music.
Aurora Reflections from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
Click through to Vimeo for more technical info about the video.
Enjoy! And do share!
And make Yellowknife one of your bucket-list locations.
One of my aurora images now appears on a new stamp issued by Canada Post to mark the 150th Anniversary of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
It is always a treat to see one of your images in print, but this is a rare privilege indeed. On June 29 Canada Post unveiled a new set of astronomy stamps, one of which features an aurora image from me, shot March 14, 2016 from the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, in Churchill, Manitoba. I shot it from the second floor observing deck, looking east to the rising sky.
The other stamp features a Milky Way image shot by fellow RASC member Matt Quinn taken from the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario.
If you view the stamps under UV “black light” more image information is revealed!
The stamps were issued to mark the 150th Anniversary of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, which began as an exclusive “gentlemen’s club” in Toronto in 1868. It is much more inclusive today, as it should be, with a membership of 5500 people from across Canada.
The stamps were unveiled at a ceremony at the RASC’s annual General Assembly, this year held in Calgary where I live. Representatives from Canada Post, and of course the RASC executive were in attendance.
This shows (L to R): me, David Foote (author, eclipse chaser, and member of the Stamp Advisory Committee), Chris Gainor (incoming RASC President), and Colin Haig (outgoing RASC President) at the unveiling. Matt Quinn was not able to attend. All those present (including members of the local Philatelic Society) received first day covers which David and I autographed.
This was certainly a great honour, a once-a-lifetime event I’m sure. I am grateful to the RASC officials such as Randy Attwood who lobbied for the stamp issue, a process that began three years ago.
I was first contacted by Canada Post in October 2016 though the final image was not selected until October 2017. Since then, its use was to be kept secret until the “Big Reveal” unveiling at the General Assembly. For the most part, it was!
This is a shot I took of some of my fellow RASC members and friends from across Canada enjoying me taking a picture of them at the ceremony at the University of Calgary.
The strange aurora named Steve put on a show on Sunday, May 6.
The past weekend was a good one for Northern Lights here in Alberta and across western Canada.
A decent display lit the northern sky on Saturday, May 5, on a warm spring evening. I took in that show from a favorite spot along the Red Deer River.
The next night, Sunday, May 6, we were hoping for a better show, but the main aurora never amounted to much across the north.
Instead, we got a fine showing of Steve, an unusual isolated arc of light across the sky, that was widely observed across western Canada and the northern U.S. I caught his performance from my backyard.
Popularized by the Alberta Aurora Chasers Facebook group, Steve is the fanciful name applied to what still remains a partly unexplained phenomenon. It might not even be a true aurora (and it is NOT a “proton arc!”) from electrons streaming down, but a stream of hot gas flowing east to west and always well south of the main aurora.
Thus Steve is “backronymed” as Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.
To the eye he appears as a grey arc, not doing much, but fading in, slowly shifting, then fading away after 30 to 60 minutes. He doesn’t stick around long.
The camera reveals his true colours.
This is Steve to the west, displaying his characteristic pink and white tints.
But overhead, in a fish-eye lens view, he displayed ever so briefly another of his talents – slowly moving fingers of green, called a picket fence aurora.
It was appropriate for Steve to appear on cue, as NASA scientists and local researchers who are working on Steve research were gathered in Calgary to discuss future aurora space missions. Some of the researchers had not yet seen Steve in person, but all got a good look Sunday night as they, too, chased Steve!
I shot a time-lapse and real-time videos of Steve, the latter using the new Sony a7III camera which can shoot 4K videos of night sky scenes very well.
The final video is here on Vimeo.
Steve Aurora – May 6, 2018 (4K) from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
It is in 4K, if you choose to stream it at full resolution.
With summer approaching, the nights are getting shorter and brighter, but we here in western Canada can still see auroras, while aurora destinations farther north are too bright and lack any night skies.
Plus our latitude south of the main auroral oval makes western Canada Steve country!
The skies of Norway provided superb nights of Northern Lights as I sailed the coast.
As I did last autumn, I was able to join a cruise along the Norwegian coast, instructing an aurora tour group from Road Scholar. We were on one of the Hurtigruten ferry ships that ply the coast each day, the m/s Nordnorge, on a 12-day trip from Bergen to Kirkenes at the top end of Norway, then back again to Bergen.
Auroral curtains in twilight on March 14, 2018 from at sea north of Tromsø, Norway, on the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordnorge, with the curtains showing a purple tinge at the tops, likely from scattered blue sunlight mixing with the red oxygen colours. The Big Dipper is at centre in a view looking north. This is a single 2-second exposure with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 8000.
In all, we had three very clear nights, with good auroras on two of those nights. Several other nights had bright auroras but seen through broken cloud.
Aurora tourists taking in the sky show on March 14, 2018 from the aft deck of the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordnorge on the journey south, from a location north of Tromsø this night. This is a single 2-second exposure with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 8000.
All observing and photography is done from the ship deck as we sailed among the fjords and sounds along the coast.
Auroral curtains in twilight on March 14, 2018 from at sea north of Tromsø, Norway, on the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordnorge, with the curtains showing a purple tinge to the background sky, likely from scattered blue sunlight mixing with the red oxygen colours. The Big Dipper is at upper left; Orion is at far right; Leo is left of centre, in a view looking south. This is a single 2-second exposure with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 8000.
The best night was an all-sky display on March 14 seen from north of Tromsø as we sailed back south from our farthest north of 71° latitude.
A sky-covering aurora on March 14, 2018, as seen from the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordnorge, as we sailed south toward Tromsø, Norway. The view is looking east. The curtains are converging to the zenith at top. This is a single 1.6-second exposure with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye lens at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 8000.
Earlier, on the trip north, we had a great night as the aurora danced over the Lofoten Islands and we entered the Trollfjord. There is no finer scenery on Earth for framing the Lights.
A scene from the Norwegian coast and the Loftoten Islands of the aurora over the entrance to the Trollfjorden fjord, from the forward deck of the Hurtigruten ferry ship the m/s Nordnorge. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at left. Vega (brightest) and Deneb are at lower right, high above the northern horizon from this latitude of 68° North. Taken March 10, 2018. I used the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200, for a 2-second exposure.
As is the custom, the captain enters the fjord by searchlight, a scene depicted below.
A scene from the Norwegian coast and the Loftoten Islands of the aurora over the entrance to the Trollfjorden fjord, from the forward deck of the Hurtigruten ferry ship the m/s Nordnorge. The ship is using its searchlights to mark the entrance to the narrow fjord. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at left. Vega (brightest) and Deneb are at lower right, high above the northern horizon from this latitude of 68° North. Taken March 10, 2018. I used the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200, for a 2-second exposure.
I shot very few time-lapses on this trip (unlike my trip in October 2017, which you can see in a music video at a previous blog post).
However, here’s a short music video of two clips I did shoot, including a time-lapse of us approaching the Trollfjord entrance.
As we sailed south, we left the aurora behind. Our last look was of the arc of the auroral oval across the north, seen from south of Rorvik.
A 180° panorama of the sweep of the auroral oval, from due west, at left, to due east, at right, with due north near the image centre. Orion is just setting into the sea at far left. Cassiopeia is at centre. Deneb and Vega are the bright stars low in the sky and circumpolar shining just right of centre. I shot this on the evening of March 16, 2018 from at sea on the coast of Norway south of Rorvik, with the ship sailing south away from the aurora. This was from the aft deck of the m/s Nordnorge, one of the Hurtigruten ferry ships. The latitude was about 63° N. This is a panorama from 8 segments, stitched with PTGui, and shot with the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8, for a series of 1-second exposures at ISO 6400 with the Nikon D750.
However, for several nights prior we had been under the auroral oval and the Lights had danced for us over the sky.
Norway is one of the world’s best sites for seeing the Northern Lights – the “nordlys” – and taking a Hurtigruten cruise along the coast is a great way to see the Lights and incredible scenery that changes by the minute.
I present a music video of time-lapses of the Northern Lights from Norway, shot from the ship the aptly named m/s Nordlys.
The Nordlys is one of many ferry ships in the Hurtigruten cruise line (the name means “fast route”) that ply the Norwegian coast, with daily departures from Bergen (at latitude 60° N) to Kirkenes at the top of Norway (at 71° N). At the top end of Norway you are under the auroral oval and almost always see some level of auroral activity, if skies cooperate.
This 11-day cruise was blessed with five clear nights with active auroras. I was serving as an instructor for a tour group of 30 from the U.S.-based Road Scholar tour company.
Sailing to the Northern Lights from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
The final sequence is of the ship entering the Trollfjorden – a narrow fjord often entered in darkness under searchlight. This was a dramatic sight with the aurora dancing overhead.
For a selection of still images from this trip and from the second cruise I did immediately following, see my previous blog post, The Nordlys of Norway.
Technical Info:
All exposures were about 1 to 1.3 seconds only, to minimize blurring during each exposure, shot with the Nikon D750 at ISO 6400, and with mostly the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8.
One sequence is with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye at f/2.8. Intervals were 1 to 2 seconds, providing a rapid cadence.
In assembly I applied a 4-frame blur to smooth the frame-to-frame motion. All processing with Adobe Camera Raw and assembly with the Mac app Time-Lapse from MicroProjects.ca (an app no longer available – a pity).
Music is by the Hollywood soundtrack artists AudioMachine, and is used with permission under “social media” licence. It is the track “Above and Beyond” from their album Tree of Life.
For the past three weeks I chased the “nordlys” – the Northern Lights – along the coast of Norway up to a latitude of 71° North.
As I type this blog our ship, the Hurtigruten ferry the m/s Nordlys, is rocking and rolling as we cross the Froy Sea off the southern coast of Norway on the way south to Bergen.
We’re completing a cruise up and down the Norwegian coast, the second of two consecutive 11-day cruises I took this autumn as an enrichment lecturer on aurora cruise tour packages offered by the U.S.-based Road Scholar tour company.
It’s been a superb chase up and down the coast – twice! – to catch the Lights. We got a total of 8 clear nights of aurora out of 22, not a bad tally for this time of year.
Here’s a gallery of images, all shot from the ship using a fast lens and high ISO speeds to keep exposures down to about 1 second to minimize blurring from the ship movement.
A participant in the Road Scholar aurora tour in October 2017 watches the Northern Lights from the aft deck of the m/s Nordlys on the Norway coast. The Big Dipper is at centre
Aurora tourists watch and photograph the Northern Lights from the deck of the m/s Nordlys in October 2017 on the coast of Norway.
Watching the Northern Lights from the deck of the m/s Nordlys on October 24, 2017 from the coast of Norway. This is a single exposure of 1 second with the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.
The Northern Lights exhibiting the classic pink colour on the lower edge of the curtains from glowing nitrogen molecules, in addition to the main green tint from oxygen. Taken from the Hurigruten ship the m/s Nordlys north of Tromsø on October 24, 2017. This is a single 1-second exposure with the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. Taken as part of a time-lapse sequence.
The aurora boralis over a bridge in Norway, as per the legend of “Bifrost,” the bridge between heaven and Earth in Norse mythology. Taken from the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordlys on October 23, 2017, on the journey between Svolvaer and Tromsø. Taken with the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400 for 1.6 seconds, as part of a 450-frame time-lapse.
The sweep of the auroral oval from a latitude of 70° north in the Barent’s Sea off the north coast of Norway, on October 26, 2017. The curtains exhibit a lower pink fringe from nitrogen. Taken from the forward deck of the m/s Nordlys This is a single 2-second exposure with the 12mm Rokinon full-frame fish-eye lens at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.
Auroral curtains from the deck of the m/s Nordlys on October 25, 2017, looking northeast toward the Big Dipper at centre. Arcturus is setting at left.
Auroral curtains from the deck of the m/s Nordlys on October 25, 2017, looking northeast toward the Big Dipper at right. Arcturus is setting a left of centre.
The Hurtigruten ship the m/s Kong Harold sailing south and apparently into the aurora, on the Norwegian coast, as we passed the ship as we sailed north.
The scene as the m/s Nordlys exits the narrow Trollfjorden fjord, with the ship’s spotlights lighting the walls of the narrow fjord and with the aurora dancing. Ahead lies the winter sky with Taurus and the Pleiades rising. This was a magical moment indeed, one of the best of the Norway cruise. This is a single 0.8 sec exposure with the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.
Aurora in the moonlight from a nearly Full Moon over the Barent’s Sea off the north coast of Norway, November 5, 2017. This was a very weak Kp 0 to Kp 1 display, yet still showed up in the moonlight. The Moon was in Taurus, with the Pleiades at above the Moon and the Aldebaran to the left of the Moon. This is a single 0.5-second exposure with the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. Taken from the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordlys.
A dim but photogenic aurora on November 7, from the coast of Norway on the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordlys, in a view looking south to Pegasus and Andromeda, and over off-shore islands. The rising waning Moon off frame to the left illuminates the sky and landscape. This is a single 1-second exposure with the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.
Aurora in the moonlight from a nearly Full Moon over the Barent’s Sea off the north coast of Norway, November 5, 2017. This was a very weak Kp 0 to Kp 1 display, yet still showed up in the moonlight. The Moon is off frame to the right. The Big Dipper is left of centre — we are looking almost due north. Taken from Deck 5, port side, of the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordlys This is a single 0.5-second exposure with the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.
A wisp of aurora appears in a break in the clouds as the m/s Nordlys enters Trollfjorden fjord in the Lofoten Islands in Norway, on November 8, 2017. It was actually raining when I took this shot but a major auroral storm was underway and we got a brief glimpse of a curtain as we entered this spectacular and narrow fjord. Then the rain clouds closed in. The bright lights are the ship’s searchlights lighting the walls of the narrow fjord. The white at top is the ship’s smoke. This was from the aft deck looking astern. This was with the 12mm Rokinon fish-eye lens at f/2.8 for 1.6 seconds with the Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.
One of the most memorable nights was on the first cruise when we sailed into the narrow Trollfjorden fjord in the dark with just the ship’s spotlights lighting the fjord walls only metres away from the ship. Above us, the Northern Lights danced. Unforgettable!
The Hurtigruten line operates daily sailings up and down the coast, from Bergen to Kirkenes, up into the auroral oval, which in this part of the world lies at a high latitude above the Arctic Circle. However, the warm gulf stream current keeps the water from freezing and the coast far milder than would be expected for such a high latitude.
This is a trip that should be on the bucket list for all aurora chasers.
I’ve assembled a music video of time-lapse clips and still images of the fine aurora of September 27, with Steve making a cameo appearance.
The indicators this night didn’t point to a particularly great display, but the sky really performed.
The Northern Lights started low across the north, in a very active classic arc. The display then quietened.
But as it did so, and as is his wont, the isolated arc that has become known as Steve appeared across the south in a sweeping arc. The Steve arc always defines the most southerly extent of the aurora.
Steve faded, but then the main display kicked up again and began to fill the sky with a post-sub-storm display of pulsing rays and curtains shooting up to the zenith. Only real-time video can really capture the scene as the eye sees it, but the fast time-lapses I shot do a decent job of recording the effect of whole patches of sky turning on and off.
The display ended with odd pulsing arcs in the south.
Here’s the video, available in 4K resolution.
Alberta Aurora (Sept. 27, 2017) from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
The Northern Lights dance in the solstice sky over a prairie lake.
This was a surprise display. Forecasts called for a chance of Lights on Saturday, June 24, but I wasn’t expecting much.
Nevertheless, I headed to a nearby lake (Crawling Lake) to shoot north over the water, not of the Lights, but of noctilucent clouds, a phenomenon unique to the summer solstice sky and our latitudes here on the Canadian prairies.
But as the night darkened (quite late at solstice time) the aurora began to appear in the deepening twilight.
I started shooting and kept shooting over the next four hours. I took a break from the time-lapses to shoot some panoramas, such as the headline image at top, capturing the sweep of the auroral oval over the lake waters.
Just on the horizon you can see some noctilucent clouds (NLCs) as well – clouds so high they are lit by the Sun all night long. NLCs sit at the same height as the bottom of the auroral curtains. But they appear here lower and much farther away, which they likely were, sitting farther north than the auroral band.
A 360° panorama of the aurora and Milky Way in the twilight sky of a summer solstice evening.
I also shot this 360° panorama (above) capturing the arc of the aurora and of the Milky Way. This is a stitch of 8 segments with a 14mm lens mounted in portrait mode.
I’ve assembled the several time-lapse sequences I shot into a short music video. Check it out on Vimeo here. Click through to the Vimeo page for more technical information on the video sequences.
As always click HD, and relax and enjoy the dancing lights over the calm waters of a prairie lake on a summer evening.
No one predicted this spectacle. But on May 27 the last-minute warnings went out to look for a fabulous show as night fell.
And what a show it was! As darkness fell the sky was lit with green curtains. After midnight the curtains converged at the zenith for that most spectacular of sky sights, a coronal burst.
As the night began I was at the Rothney Observatory helping out with the public stargazing night.
We saw the Space Station rise out of the west over the Rockies and pass through the Northern Lights.
It then headed off east, appearing here as the streak amid the Lights and light pollution of Calgary.
To continue to shoot the display I, too, decided to head east, to home. I should have gone west, to the mountains.
I drove through rain to get home, and missed the peak of the display, judging by images from others in the Rockies, and those to the north.
But as I got home clouds began to clear enough for a glimpse of the Space Station, on its next pass, flying overhead, again through the aurora. I wonder what the astronauts might have been seeing looking down.
From home, I caught another bright sub-storm outburst to the north, as the curtains suddenly exploded in brightness and rapid motion, with characteristic pink fringes at the bottoms, from nitrogen molecules.
What impressed me about this display was the smell! Yes, you see auroras and some claim to hear them. But this display is one I’ll remember for the springtime scent of lilacs in the night air as the Lights danced.
The Great Aurora of May 27 from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
Here is a short music video of several time-lapse sequences I shot, of the sub-storm then post-storm subsidence into the patchy flaming and flickering effect that we often see at the end of a great display. And this was certainly one of them.
We southerners were treated to the class of display you usually have to travel north the Arctic and auroral oval to see.
The arch of the Milky Way mirrors the sweep of the Red Deer River on a magical night in the Alberta Badlands.
Images of the Milky Way arching across the sky are now iconic. They are almost always assembled from individual frames stitched together to make a seamless panorama.
From the northern hemisphere, spring is the best season to shoot such a panorama as the Milky Way then remains confined to the eastern sky.
Later in summer, when the Milky Way passes directly overhead, panoramas are still possible, but the Milky Way looks distorted. The process of mapping a round sky onto a rectangular image, as I show here, inevitably stretches out the Milky Way near the zenith.
Last Saturday, in search of the Milky Way during prime panorama season, I set up for the night at Orkney Viewpoint overlooking the Red Deer River in the Alberta Badlands north of Drumheller. There, the river performs a grand curve through the valley below.
Above, the Milky Way, often described as a river of stars, sweeps in mirror-image fashion above the earthly river.
This is a stitch of 8 segments with the Sigma 20mm Art lens, in portrait mode, and Nikon D750. Each 30 seconds at f/2 and ISO 3200. Stitched with Adobe Camera Raw. Taken on a mild and moonless night, May 20, 2017.
The panorama above contains the reflection of stars – of the constellation of Delphinus in particular – in the smooth water on a windless night.
To the north at left, the Northern Lights put on a subtle show. While never spectacular to the eye, the camera records the aurora’s colour and forms that often elude the naked eye.
This is a stack of 4 x 15-second exposures for the ground to smooth noise, and one 15-second exposure for the sky, all with the 20mm Sigma lens at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200. They were part of a 250-frame time-lapse.
The display was brightest early in the evening – that’s 11 p.m. now in May at my latitude.
The display then faded in intensity before I shot the two panoramas about 1 a.m., but the last few frames of the time-lapse show a final burst of colour from a lone curtain reflected in the river.
This is a stack of 84 x 15-second exposures for the ground to smooth noise, and one 15-second exposure for the sky, all with the 20mm Sigma lens at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200. They were part of a 250-frame time-lapse.
This was a magical night indeed. And a rare one this spring with clouds more often the norm at night.
The next dark of the Moon coincides with summer solstice. So while the moonlight won’t interfere, critical for shooting the Milky Way, the glow of perpetual twilight at my latitude will. The Milky Way will be set in a deep blue sky.
By July’s dark of the Moon the Milky Way will be high overhead, making panorama arches tough to assemble. It looks like this might have been my one best night to capture such a scene this year. But it was a good one.
Stargazers in western Canada will have seen him – Steve, the odd auroral arc.
There’s been a lot of publicity lately about an unusual form of aurora that appears as a stationary arc across the sky, isolated from the main aurora to the north. It usually just sits there – motionless, featureless, and colourless to the eye, though the camera can pick up magenta and green tints.
We often see these strange auroral arcs from western Canada.
In lieu of a better name, and lacking a good explanation as to their cause, these isolated arcs have become labelled simply as “Steve” by the aurora chasing community (the Alberta Aurora Chasers Facebook group) here in Alberta.
In a gathering of aurora chasers at Calgary’s Kilkenny Pub, aurora photographer extraordinaire and AAC Facebook group administrator Chris Ratzlaff suggested the name. It comes from the children’s movie Over the Hedge, where a character calls anything he doesn’t understand “Steve.” The name has stuck!
The 270° panorama from March 2, 2017 shows Steve to the west (right) and east (left) here, and well isolated from the main aurora to the north.
This is the view of that same March 2, 2017 arc looking straight up, showing Steve’s characteristic gradient from pink at top though white, then to subtle “picket-fence” fingers of green that are usually very short-lived.
The view above is Steve from exactly 6 months earlier, on September 2, 2016. Same features. I get the impression we’re looking up along a very tall but thin curtain.
Another view of the September 2, 2016 Steve shows his classic thin curtain and gradation of colours, here looking southeast.
Looking southwest on September 2, 2016, Steve takes on more rippled forms. But these are very transient. Indeed, Steve rarely lasts more than 30 minutes to an hour, and might get bright for only a few minutes. But even at his brightest, he usually looks white or grey to the eye, and moves very slowly.
Here’s a classic Steve, from October 1, 2006 – a white featureless arc even to the camera in this case.
So what is Steve?
He is often erroneously called a “proton arc,” but he isn’t. True auroral proton arcs are invisible to the eye and camera, emitting in wavelengths the eye cannot see. Proton auroras are also diffuse, not tightly confined like Steve.
Above is Steve from August 5, 2005, when he crashed the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party, appearing as a ghostly white band across the sky. But, again, the camera revealed his true colours.
Steve Auroras in 2015 from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
Here are a couple of time-lapses from 2015 of the phenomenon, appearing as an isolated arc overhead in the sky far from the main auroral activity to the north. I shot these from my backyard in southern Alberta. In both clips the camera faces north, but takes in most of the sky with a fish-eye lens.
In the first video clip, note the east-to-west flow of structure, as in classic auroras. In the second clip, Steve is not so well-defined. Indeed, his usual magenta band appears only briefly for a minute or so. So I’m not sure this second clip does show the classic Steve arc.
The origin and nature of Steve are subjects of investigation, aided by “citizen science” contributors of photos and videos.
Local aurora researcher Dr. Eric Donovan from the University of Calgary has satellite data from the ESA Swarm mission to suggest Steve is made of intensely hot thermal currents, and not classic electrons raining down as in normal auroras. He has back-acronymed Steve to mean Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.
Learning more about Steve will require a unique combination of professional and amateur astronomers working together.
Now that he has a name, Steve won’t be escaping our attention any longer. We’ll be looking for him!
The Northern Lights once again performed beautifully from Churchill, Manitoba, making the sky dance with colours.
As I do each winter, I spent time in Churchill, Manitoba at the wonderful Churchill Northern Studies Centre, attending to groups of “aurora tourists” there to check an item off their bucket list – seeing the Northern Lights.
In the 30 years the courses have been presented only one group has ever come away not seeing the Lights. Well, make that two now. A bout of unseasonably warm weather in my first week brought clouds every night. Mild temperatures to be sure. But we want it to be -25° C! That’s when it is clear.
Our first clear night was very clear, affording us a wonderful view of the winter Milky Way before the Lights came out. Such a view is unusual from the North, as the Lights usually wash out the sky, which they did later this night. Even here, you can see some wisps of green aurora.
Normal temperatures didn’t return until week 2 of my stay. The second group fared much better, getting good displays on 4 of their 5 nights there, more typical of Churchill.
A few determined die-hards from Group 1 (here shooting the Lights) stayed on a couple of more nights, and were rewarded with the views they had come for. They were happy!
In the images here, at no time did the auroral activity exceed a level of Kp 3 (on a scale of 0 to 9) and was often just Kp 1 or 2. Farther south no one would see anything. But at latitude 58° N Churchill lies under the auroral oval where even on quiet nights the aurora is active and often spectacular.
In speaking to a Dene elder who presents a cultural talk to each of the CNSC groups, Caroline said that to the Dene of northern Canada their word for the Lights translates to “the sky is dancing.” Wonderful! It did for us.
The Auroras of Churchill from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.
This music video presents a montage of time-lapse movies I shot over four nights, from January 25 to 29, 2017. They provide an idea of what we saw under the dancing sky.
As usual, choose HD and enlarge to full screen to view the movie. Or go to Vimeo with the V button.
It was a perfect night at a dark site in southern Alberta. The Milky Way shone to the south and aurora danced to the north.
I had scouted out this location in June and marked it on my calendar to return in the fall when the centre of the Milky Way would be well-placed to the southwest.
The site is Police Outpost Provincial Park, named for the North West Mounted Police fort that once occupied the site, guarding Canada’s sovereignty in the late 1800s.
One result from the night of shooting is the opening image, the first frame from a time-lapse taken while deep blue twilight still coloured the sky. The main peak is Chief Mountain in Montana.
A fairly mild dispay of aurora in the darkening deep blue twilight over the lake at Police Outpost Provincial Park, in southern Alberta, on September 26, 2016, with the stars of Perseus rising, and with Capella low in the northeast at centre. This is a stack of 4 x 20 second exposures for the dark ground and water to smooth noise and one 20-second exposure for the sky, all with the 25mm Canon lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D at ISO 2000.
To the north an aurora display kicked up over the lake. While it never got very bright, it still provided a photogenic show over the still waters.
A fairly mild dispay of aurora over the lake at Police Outpost Provincial Park, in southern Alberta, on September 26, 2016, with the stars of Auriga and Taurus rising, including the Pleiades at upper right. The Hyades in Taurus are the most prominent stellar reflections at lower right, in the still water this evening. Capella is the bright star above centre; Aldebaran is at right. This is a stack of 4 x 20 second exposures for the dark ground to smooth noise and one 20-second exposure for the sky and water, all with the 25mm Canon lens at f/2.2 and Canon 6D at ISO 3200.
The waters were calm on this windless night (rare for southern Alberta), and so reflected the stars and Northern Lights beautifully.
The Big Dipper reflected in the still waters of the lake at Police Outpost Provincial Park, in southern Alberta, on September 26, 2016, with an aurora to the north at right. Only in autumn can one shoot the Dipper reflected in the water in the evening sky, as it is then riding low along the northern horizon. This is from a latitude of 49° N where the Dipper is circumpolar. This is a stack of 4 x 25 second exposures for the dark ground to smooth noise and one 25-second exposure for the sky and water, all with the 25mm Canon lens at f/2.2 and Canon 6D at ISO 3200.
Here, the Big Dipper reflects in the lake as we look north to the Lights. The movie below compiles still images and two time-lapse sequences, of the Lights and Milky Way. The sounds are the natural sounds I recorded on site, as flocks of geese were getting ready to migrate and the owls hooted.
Enjoy! — As always, for the best view, enlarge to full screen or click through to Vimeo with the V button.
My latest music video includes images, time-lapses and real-time videos of the Northern Lights shot in February and March 2016 in Churchill.
While I’ve posted my recent images of the aurora here and at many social media sites, all the videos I shoot take more work before they are ready to unveil to the public. Videos work best when set to music.
In this case, I’m very pleased to have received permission from EverSound Music to incorporate the music of one of my favourite artists, John Adorney, in my latest music video montage. The selection is If a Rose Could Speak, from his 2013 album The Wonder Well. It features vocals by Daya.
The video incorporates still images, as well as time-lapse sequences, and real-time videos of the Northern Lights.
The all-sky time-lapses are intended to be projected in digital planetarium theatres, recreating the scene on their 360° domes.
Please click on the V for Vimeo button to really see the video well. And select 1080p HD for the best image quality. And do share!
ABOUT THE VIDEO
I shot all scenes at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, near Churchill, Manitoba, on the shore of Hudson Bay at a latitude of 58° North. Churchill’s location places it under the usual location of the auroral oval, providing spectacular displays of Northern Lights even on nights when locations to the south are seeing nothing.
I was at the CNSC to present sets of 5-night aurora viewing programs to guests from across North America. Click the link above for more details on their programs. The 2016 aurora season is over, but we’ll have more aurora programs in January and February of next year.
TECHNICAL
I shot all images with Canon 6D and Nikon D750 DSLR cameras, usually at ISO 3200. The fish-eye all-sky sequences were with a Sigma 8mm lens on the Canon, while most of the still images and other full-frame time-lapses were with the Sigma 20mm Art lens on the Nikon. For the “rapid-cadence” time-lapses I used 1- to 2-second exposures at an interval of one second.
The real-time video clips were with the Nikon – set to ISO 25600 – and the Sigma wide open at f/1.4. While these clips are prone to digital noise, they do record the fast movement and subtle colour of the aurora much as the eye saw it. See my earlier music video with real-time clips shot February 12 for more examples of these.
The all-sky sequences were processed through LRTimelapse v4 software, to handle the huge range in brightness of the Lights. Real-time video clips were processed in Photoshop with the Camera Raw filter.
Temperatures ranged from a bitter -35° C to just (!) -15° C on most nights.
I kept the long-duration, all-sky, time-lapse camera going by placing it in a Camera Parka (www.atfrostedlens.com) and inserting disposable hand warmer packs inside the insulated parka. It worked very well, making it possible to shoot for up to 3 hours. Without it, the battery died after an hour.
From Churchill, Manitoba the Northern Lights dance almost every night over the boreal forest.
This year, as in the last two years, I have traveled to the shores of a frozen Hudson Bay and to the town of Churchill, Manitoba to view and photograph the aurora borealis.
I’m instructing two tour groups at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, one this week and one last week, in the science and sagas of the aurora and on how to shoot the Lights. The participants in the groups are fabulous, keenly interested and unfazed by the cold and wind.
From Churchill’s latitude of 58° N, we are under the main auroral oval almost every night. Even on nights with low official activity levels, as they were on all the nights I shot these images, we still get sky-filling displays.
Here’s a selection of still images from the last week of shooting, with clear skies on all but a couple of nights. There’s still room in our March sessions!
Circumpolar star trails and aurora over the boreal forest at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, Churchill, Manitoba, on Feb 9, 2016. This is a stack of 250 frames shot over one hour (until the battery died) for a time-lapse but here stacked for a single image star trail using the Advanced Stacker Plus actions and Long Streaks effect. Each exposure was 15 seconds at f/2.8 with the 15mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 6400.
An all-sky aurora display of multiple curtains of aurora borealis over the boreal forest at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, in Churchill, Manitoba, taken on Feb 5, 2016. The view is looking almost due north. Jupiter is at right. The Big Dipper is at centre frame. This is one frame from a 380-frame time-lapse sequence shot for digital dome projection in planetariums. This is a 20-second exposure at f/5 (stopped down by accident — should have been f/3.5) with the 8mm Sigma fish-eye lens and Canon 6D at ISO 3200. Temperature was -35° C. But no wind!
Participants in the Arctic Skies tour and course observe and photograph the Northern Lights from the upper level observing deck at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, Churchill, Manitoba on Feb 10, 2016, the first night of their tour. A Level 1 to 2 display provided a good first night show though with bitterly cold temperatures and wind chills of near -50° C. This is a single exposure of 8 seconds at f/1.4 with the 20mm Sigma Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200.
The Northern Lights over the Churchill Northern Studies Centre on Feb 8/9, 2016 during a weak all-sky display. The arcs lay primarily in the south when the display was at its best this night. Orion and the Pleiades are just setting in the west over the town of Churchill. This is a 20 second exposure at f/2.8 with the 15mm full-frame fish-eye lens and Canon 6D at ISO 3200.
A panorama across the northern horizon of the sweeping curtains of the aurora, taken from the observation deck of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, Manitoba. I shot this on Feb 10, 2016 on the first night of the Arctic Skies tour group week. Vega is low in the north at left of centre, Arcturus is the bright star at right of centre. This is a 4-segment panorama, stitched with Adobe Camera Raw, with each segment 5 seconds at f/1.4 with the 20mm Sigma lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200.
Curtains of the aurora looking northeast and east toward Leo rising (at upper right) and Jupiter (at right), over the boreal forest of the Hudson Bay Lowlands near Churchill, Manitoba, on Feb 5, 2016. This is a single frame from a 680-frame time-lapse. This is a 4-second exposure at f/1.4 with the Sigma 20mm Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200.
Vertical curtains of aurora converging to the zenith overhead over the snowy boreal forest at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, Churchill, Manitoba. I shot this Feb 4, 2016 on a night with temperatures of -35° C with a slight wind. The Big Dpper is at right. Exposure was 10 seconds at f/2.8 with the 15mm lens anf Canon 6D at ISO 3200.
A lone figure gazes skyward at the aurora over the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, Churchill, Manitoba. I shot this Feb 4, 2016 on a night with temperatures of -35° C with a slight wind. Exposure was 13 seconds at f/2.8 with the 15mm lens anf Canon 6D at ISO 3200.
A wide vertical portrait of the Northern Lights in the northern sky, with the stars of the Big Dipper and Polaris above centre. Shot from the upper deck of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre on a very windy night with wind chills of -50°, so standing in the wind to take this image was bitter! You grab a few images and retreat! This is a single 15-second exposure at f/2.8 with the 15mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 3200.
The February Arctic Skies tour group watching and photographing the aurora from the second floor deck of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, where it is out of the wind, which this night was producing -50° C wind chills. This is a single 6-second exposure at f/2.8 with the 15mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 6400.
A self-portrait of me watching the Northern Lights from the upper deck of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, looking south to the winter stars of Orion, Gemini and Auriga. This was Feb 11, 2016, a very windy, almost blizzard night with blowing snow and reduced visibility. However the aurora did appear through the haze and clouds. In the distance are the buildings of the old Churchill Rocket Range. This is a single 15-second exposure at f/2.8 with the 15mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 3200.
The Northern Lights dance overhead each night from Churchill, Manitoba.
If you really want to see the Northern Lights, don’t wait for them to come to you. Instead, you go to them.
For the second year in a row I’ve been able to participate as an instructor during week-long aurora courses and tours at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre on the shore of Hudson Bay. The site is at 58° latitude, far enough north to place us directly under the main auroral oval, the prime location for viewing the Northern Lights.
If it’s clear, a view of dancing arcs and curtains of aurora is almost guaranteed. Two nights ago we had a marvellous display, despite official indicators of aurora strength and geomagnetic activity all reading low or even zero.
Still, the Lights came out and danced across the sky.
The top photo is selfie of me standing the display in a 360° all-sky image shot for use in a planetarium. The research centre building is at left. The view is generally looking north.
This view is from the second floor deck of the centre, usually a bit more sheltered from the wind. It allows a good view to the north and east, where displays typically start, as they did this night. Feb. 13.
As the display developed the curtain rose up into the sky to arc from east to west across heavens.
This image, also a 360° fish-eye image taken with an 8mm lens, shows the display at its best, with rippling curtains hanging overhead. It’s part of a time-lapse sequence.
The next night, February 14, was marked by fainter but an unusually red aurora, appropriate for Valentine’s Day perhaps. Or the 50th anniversary of our red and white Canadian flag.
The sky was a little hazier, but the aurora shone through, initially only with a red and orange tint, colours we could just see with the unaided eye – the long exposures of the camera really bring out the colours the eye can only just perceive when the aurora is dim.
The green curtains, seen here in the distance, did arrive a few minutes later, lighting up the curtains in the more usual green colour, with just upper fringes of red.
It seems the red is from low-energy electrons exciting oxygen only in the upper atmosphere. Only later did the more energetic electrons arrive to excite the green oxygen transition that occurs at lower altitudes.
With luck, I’ll have more nights to stand under the auroral oval and look up in wonder at the Northern Lights.
What a fabulous night this was! Forewarned about an impending solar storm I headed to the site of a rustic barn near home to shoot the Northern Lights.
The night started with cloud but upon looking out after midnight (it pays never to go to bed too early!) the skies were clear. Checking Spaceweather.com showed an active auroral oval lit up red and Storm in Progress warnings!
That was all the cue I needed to pack up the gear and head over to the old barn site where I have been shooting time-lapses all this week.
The aurora remained quiet and diffuse for the first hour and a half, but then about 2 a.m., the substorm hit. Within seconds the curtains began to light up with well-defined rays and beams shooting to the zenith. And they danced.
The notable feature of this display, as with one in May 2013, was the blue and purple colour of the tops of the curtains. I think this is partly due to sunlight illuminating the tops of the curtains, possible at this time of year when the upper atmosphere is perpetually lit by the midnight Sun.
From the start I shot with two cameras taking time-lapses (the main still image at top is a frame from one of the movies). Then toward the end of the night I switched to just shooting still images framed to suit the curtains towering up to the zenith.
As above, I also shot a “selfie” of me shooting the vertical image in the middle of the set.
But below is the result of a night of shooting time-lapse movies and stills, in a montage set to music. The link takes you to my Vimeo site. Do turn on HD mode.
The Milky Way, an odd aurora, and the glow of urban light pollution lit the sky. But alas, no meteors!
On Friday afternoon, May 23 I headed 3 hours east of home toward the clearest skies in the province. The quest was for sightings of the Camelopardalid meteors, the new and much publicized meteor shower from Comet LINEAR, 209/P that had been predicted for tonight.
I had very good skies for the first couple of hours of darkness, from a viewpoint looking north over the prairies on the high rim of the Cypress Hills, Alberta. Clouds did move in about 12:30 a.m., about the time the shower was to be peaking. But up to that point I had sighted just a handful of meteors and many were likely random ones, as they didn’t seem to be streaking out of the radiant point. A few other people who had converged at the site saw other meteors to the south that might have been shower members.
Perhaps the peak came later under cover of clouds. But up to 12:30 a.m. I saw little sign of an active shower. Still, it was worth taking the chance to chase into clear skies in hopes of bagging a herd of Camelopardalids.
I shot hundreds of frames with two cameras and none picked up a Cam meteor – lots of satellites, like the streak at lower centre. And for a few minutes this strange white auroral curtain appeared, slowly drifting from east to west across the northern sky, like a searchlight, above the magenta horizon glow of low-level aurora. To the northwest glowed the lights of Medicine Hat, illuminating the clouds toxic yellow in a classic demonstration of light pollution.
The northern lights – the aurora borealis – shine above the trees of the northern forest – the boreal forest.
This was the scene on Sunday night, February 9, 2014, as the aurora intensified for a few minutes making for a photogenic backdrop to the snow-covered pine trees of the boreal forest.
The landscape looks like daylight but is actually being lit by the light of the bright waxing Moon in the south. These scenes are looking north.
I shot these images as part of my stay at the Churchill Northern Studies Centrewhere I have been presenting enrichment lectures to two groups of tourists here to see the northern lights during week-long stays. Both groups have been successful in seeing the lights on at least one to two nights of their stay, with the displays usually appearing as sky-spanning arcs overhead.
Here I took the time to take a “selfie” under the northern lights, as the curtains began to wave early in the evening.
In all, it has been a fantastic experience, to witness the lights from a site right under the active auroral oval at 58° north.
The Northern Lights danced all night, as Earth was buffeted by winds from the Sun.
As soon as I saw the warning notices at Spaceweather.com I was hoping we would be in for a wonderful night of aurora watching. I wasn’t disappointed.
Forewarned, I headed out to the Wintering Hills Wind Farm near my home in southern Alberta. I thought it would be neat to get shots of the effects of the solar wind from beneath and beside the wind turbines of the farm. The shot above is from a time-lapse movie taken with a fish-eye lens that will look great when projected in a full-dome digital planetarium.
I shot with three cameras, with two aimed east to where the brightest part of the auroral arc usually sits. It was also exactly where the Moon would rise after midnight. This shot, above, captures the scene right at moonrise, which was also right when the aurora kicked into high gear as a sub-storm of solar particles rained down on our upper atmosphere. The ground lit up green with the glow of oxygen in the mesosphere, some 100 kilometres up.
This shot, taken moments later with a longer focal length lens, grabs the waning Moon shining behind the distant wind machines, and beneath the arc of auroral curtains.
In all, I shot 50 gigabytes of raw images, both still images and frames for time-lapse movies. I’ve assembled most of them into a musical collage that honours the night. In the final sequence of the movie, it almost looks like the wind machine is facing into the brunt of the solar wind, as pulses of aurora surge from out of the east toward the turbine towering overhead.
The music is by a new favourite artist of mine, the Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi. His latest album of alt-classical/new age music is called “In a Time Lapse.” How could you not like that?! Buy it on iTunes. It’s stunning.
I hope you got to see the Night of the Northern Lights in person. If not, I trust these images and movies give you a sense of the wonder of what the solar wind can do.
It was a fabulous week of clear skies and dancing auroras in and around Yellowknife in Canada’s North.
The Amazing Sky 