On November 11, 2025 the sky erupted with a swath of red Northern Lights seen over much of North America.
It is rare when those living at southerly latitudes can see Northern Lights. Instead of having to travel north to Arctic sites, the aurora comes south to them. That’s what happened on November 11, 2025 when one of the largest solar storms in recent years brought the aurora down over much of the North America.
This was the latest in a set of wonderful aurora shows we’ve enjoyed in the last two years, as the Sun reached the peak of its 11-year cycle of activity.
As I show below, the apps and indicators were registering extreme conditions, with the “Kp Index” peaking at 8 out of a maximum of 9, and the auroral “Ovation” oval lighting up red, indicating a major geomagnetic storm was underway. In the lingo of the local Alberta Aurora Chasers Facebook group, it was most definitely a “pants on” night!
Kp 8! Red Alert!
The source of the storm was two major flares on the Sun in quick succession. In only a day the high-speed “coronal mass ejections” they had unleashed reached Earth and lit up the sky.
As a result the ring of aurora borealis which usually circles the Arctic moved down over southern Canada and the northern United States. I was under that ring of lights!
This is a blend of two exposures, for sky and ground, both 8 seconds at f/2.8 with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens on the Canon R5 at ISO 1600.
As it got dark this night, large swaths of red were easily visible to the eye, especially to the northwest as above, and below.
A single 5-second exposure at f/2.8 with the TTArtisan 11mm lens on the Canon R5 at ISO 1600.
Early on a large curtain of red extended across the sky, from northwest to southeast. It is rare to see bright reds with the eye, and unusual to see the reds so extensive and sky-spanning.
This 360º panorama is a stitch of 6 segments, 60º apart, each 5-second exposures at f/2.8 with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens on the Canon R5 at ISO 1600, and in landscape orientation.
The reds are mostly from oxygen atoms, but can also come from nitrogen molecules, which require the input of a lot of energy to get excited and glow! They certainly were this night.
The reds mixed with the more common green light from oxygen to produce shades of yellow and orange, and with blues from nitrogen to produce vivid pinks and magentas. While the eye could see some of these subtle colours, a camera (with its longer exposure and wider aperture lens compared to the human eye) was best for picking up the full range of what this show had on display.
This 360º panorama is a stitch of 10 segments, 36º apart, each 4-second exposure at f/2.8 with the Laowa 10mm rectilinear wide-angle lens on the Nikon Z8 at ISO 1600, and in portrait orientation.
The panorama above taken about 2 hours after the previous all-sky scene, shows a quieter aurora but still with curtains covering the sky and converging to the “magnetic zenith,” a little south of the point straight overhead.
Such an all-sky show of aurora is among the sky’s finest spectacles.
A real-time video with the Nikon Z6III at ISO 25600 and Viltrox 16mm lens at f/1/8.
In the video above taken early in the evening I pan around the horizon over the full 360º to take in the scene much as the eye did see it. Video uses shorter exposures more like the eye does. I narrate the video at the camera.
All single 4-second exposures at f/2.8 with the Laowa 10mm rectilinear wide-angle lens on the Nikon Z8 at ISO 1600.
When the aurora covers the sky it’s hard to take it all in and capture it on camera. The 10mm ultra-wide lens I used for the images above sweep up well past the zenith to show the converging curtains, forming shapes that kept changing by the minute.
In the video below I used the same lens with the camera turned to portrait orientation to create a “vertical video,” again narrated at the camera. It shows how the aurora was changing, but slowly this night. It did not have the rapid dynamics I’ve seen with other bright displays, despite the obvious high energies involved here to excite the reds.
Real-time video with the Laowa 10mm lens at f/2.8 and Nikon Z8 at ISO 25,600 & 1/4 second shutter.
Again, this real-time video captures the scene much as the unaided eye saw it. I’ve not processed either of these real-time videos, other than what the camera itself did.
This is a panorama of 12 segments, each 1 second at f/1.8 with the Viltrox 16mm lens on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 1600. Stitched in Adobe Camera Raw.This is a stitch of 6 segments, 60º apart, each 4-second exposure at f/2.8 with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens on the Canon R5 at ISO 1600, in landscape orientation. Stitched in PTGui.
On a night like this, I try to shoot not only single still images and videos, but also multi-image panoramas, such as the circular images earlier and these two rectangular “panos” above. Both cover a full 360º in width but don’t go up to the zenith.
Again, they record the range of colours that were on show on this Kp8 night, which were more visible and extensive than usual for an all-sky display.
I also shot two time-lapse sequences. These form the main visuals for this edited music video I produced around the time-lapses.
The link takes you to my Vimeo channel to watch the video. Do enlarge it to full screen!
A single 2.5-second exposure at f/1.8 with the Viltrox 16mm lens on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 1600.
I also always try to take some selfies at every great aurora show, with me often lit just by aurora light! They’re fun to use for talks and “bio pix.”
This is a single 4-second exposure at f/2.8 with the Laowa 10mm lens on the Nikon Z8 at ISO 1600.
As a final bonus this night, one of the fish-eye lens time-lapse frames happened to capture a bright meteor. You see it briefly in a flash in the music video above, but below is the single frame.
A single 4-second exposure at f/2 with the TTArtisan 7.5mm circular fish-eye lens on the Nikon Z8 at ISO 1600. Taken as part of a 780-frame time-lapse.
Because it is streaking away from the constellation of Taurus, this is likely a member of the annual Taurid meteor shower which was in its final nights of the long period it is active in late October and early November. In fact, there are two Taurid showers, Northern and Southern, active at once and coming from similar spots in Taurus. They are known to produce bright fireballs and this was certainly one!
While the Sun is now in the downward slope of its cycle, coming off “solar max” last year, we may still see more major storms and aurora shows like this. Historically, the biggest solar flares and aurora displays often occur in the 2 or 3 years after solar maximum.
So stay tuned! The sky may still light up red with Northern Lights!
A plan to shoot the promised bright comet of 2024 paid off, with fine views at dawn and at dusk of the best comet since 2020.
Comets are always a gamble. Any new comets discovered, the ones that usually become the brightest, have no track record of performance. Predictions of how bright a new comet might appear are based on what a typical comet should do. But comets can outperform expectations and dazzle us, or they can fizzle and fade away.
In late 2023 it was clear that a then newly-discovered comet, C/2023 A3, named Tsuchinshan-ATLAS after the observatories where it was co-discovered, had the potential to perform in late 2024.
The low angle and position of the comet from home in Canada in the late September dawn sky, simulated in StarryNight software.
Knowing where it would be in the sky (that trait of a comet can be predicted with accuracy!) I planned a field trip to the U.S. desert Southwest for late September and early October 2024. From farther south the comet would be higher than it would be from home (shown above), and over spectacular landscapes.
I had visions of another Comet NEOWISE from July 2020. As my blog from 2020 shows, we saw that photogenic comet well from our northern latitude in Canada, as it skimmed across the northern horizon. Tsuchinshan-ATLAS would require a chase south.
September 26 & 27 — at Bryce Canyon, Utah
In late September 2024 the comet would be inbound, approaching the Sun and in the morning sky. What better eastern scene than overlooking Bryce Canyon in Utah, where I had been a year before, for the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse of the Sun in the morning sky. (Click the link for my eclipse chase blog.)
I was fortunate to get two clear mornings, both from the Fairyland Canyon viewpoint, just a short walk from the parking lot to carry camera gear and tracking mounts.
Comet C/2023 A3, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, at dawn over Bryce Canyon, on the morning of September 27, 2024.
My first look at the comet on September 27 was on the day the comet was at perihelion, closest to the Sun in its orbit, though not in the sky at our viewing angle from Earth.
The comet was just visible to the unaided eye, but was obvious on the camera view screen, even amid the bright twilight. I had to shoot fast as the window between “comet rise” and the sky brightening too much was only a few minutes long.
Comet C/2023 A3, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, rising in the twilight over Bryce Canyon, on September 28, 2024.
Knowing better what to look for, I caught the comet a little sooner the next morning on September 28, and so the tail appeared longer and more impressive as it rose above the distant mountains. A group of other local photographers arrived just a few minutes too late both mornings, and so struggled to just sight the comet, let alone photograph it.
This vertical panorama takes in the nebula-rich northern winter Milky Way over the formations of Bryce Canyon National Park, from the Fairyland Canyon viewpoint.
But I had arrived extra early, to shoot a vertical panorama (above) of the winter Milky Way over the canyon formations below. This and the comet images were shot with the aid of a sky tracker to follow the stars, but with the tracker off for separate shots of the ground.
So I had bagged the comet at Bryce! On to the next stop.
September 28 & 29 — at Monument Valley, Utah
There’s no more iconic or famous landscape in the American West than the buttes of Monument Valley, on the Navaho Tribal Lands on the Arizona/Utah border.
This panorama from the Navaho Tribal Park at Monument Valley shows the evening twilight sky looking east opposite the sunset to the rising dark blue arc of Earth’s shadow cast on the atmosphere. The shadow is rimmed with a pink “Belt of Venus” tint from sunlight still hitting the upper atmosphere.
A clear first evening provided a fabulous view of the arc of Earth’s shadow across the eastern sky from the viewpoint near the aptly named The View Hotel.
This is a panorama of the sunrise scene at the Navaho Tribal Park, Monument Valley, Arizona, taken just after sunrise with the low Sun lighting the iconic buttes and mesas of the Valley. The West and East Mittens are at left; the Sun was behind Merrick Butte at centre, and lighting Mitchell Mesa at right.
A wonderful sunrise on my second morning there made for a spectacular panorama. But while clouds created fine sunrise lighting, they aren’t conducive to seeing comets!
Comet C/2023 A3, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (at centre), is rising in the dawn twilight over Monument Valley, Arizona on the morning of September 30, 2024. The comet is rising just south (right) of Merrick Butte.
A band of clear sky near the horizon allowed me to catch the comet rising to the right of Merrick Butte, as seen from a spot south of The View from where I had calculated the comet would rise in the right position. From the usual Valley viewpoint farther north the comet would have been behind the butte.
While the planning worked, the result was not quite the spectacle I had envisioned. The comet was nice, but was starting to become lost in the bright sky as it descended toward the Sun.
There were only a couple of mornings left to catch the comet at dawn before it disappeared completely into the daytime sky close to the Sun.
October 1 to 11 — at Quailway Cottage, Arizona
The major block of time in my trip was booked for an astrophoto retreat at a cottage I’d rented twice before but not since late 2017. The Quailway Cottage, popular among birders, is also ideal for stargazing as it is in one of the darkest areas of the Southwest, north of Douglas, Arizona, and just across the Arizona/New Mexico border.
This captures both the glow of Zodiacal Light in the eastern dawn sky (the band of light extending up across the frame) and the dust tail of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS rising from behind the Pelloncillo mountains, at dawn on October 2, 2024.
When I arrived the comet was putting in its last show in the dawn sky. In fact, on October 2 I managed to capture a dawn scene with the morning Zodiacal Light created by sunlight reflecting off cometary dust in the inner solar system, and just the tail of the comet rising before the bright comet head appeared.
Comet C/2023 A3, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, is rising in the dawn twilight over the Pelloncillo Mountains in New Mexico, on October 2, 2024.
An image taken a little later showed the entire comet, now sporting a more impressive tail. It was blossoming into a fine comet indeed. But we were about to lose sight of it for more than a week.
Arizona Deep-Sky Imaging
While at Quailway I had clear skies every night. And so, as planned, I went to town shooting all kinds of “deep-sky” objects and fields with two astrophoto rigs I had brought with me: a longer-focal length 120mm refractor for small targets, and a short-focal length refractor for wide fields in the Milky Way. I had reviewed both new telescopes in recent months.
The Askar APO120 on a veteran Astro-Physics AP400 mount. The Founder Optics Draco 62 on the small Star Adventurer GTi mount.
I concentrated on shooting targets low in the south that are impossible to get from home in Canada, and that I’ve missed shooting, or have not shot well, during my visits to Australia. See my blog here about my latest trek Down Under.
The two brightest Fornax cluster members are the elliptical galaxy NGC 1399 at upper left, paired with smaller NGC 1404, and the galaxy NGC 1365 at lower right, considered one of the best barred spirals in the sky.
Here’s an example, above, with the larger Askar 120APO: a field of galaxies in the constellation of Fornax that rivals the better-known Markarian’s Chain of galaxies in Coma Berenices in the northern spring sky.
This frames the spectacular region of the Milky Way near the direction of the galactic centre in Sagittarius.
And here’s a field (above) with the small Founder Optics Draco 62mm scope, framing the rich Sagittarius Starcloud punctuated with the small dark Ink Spot Nebula, all below the bright Lagoon and Trifid Nebulas.
This panorama extends for about 240º along the northern half of the Milky Way, from Orion at left, to Sagittarius at right, and centered on the Galactic Equator.
In autumn the Milky Way is up all night. So I used a simple star tracker, the MSM Nomad reviewed here on my blog, and a 28-70mm lens at 35mm to shoot a panorama from dusk to dawn along the Milky Way — from the summer stars of Sagittarius and Cygnus (at right, above), through the autumn constellations overhead in Cassiopeia and Perseus (at centre), and down into the pre-dawn sky with the winter stars in and around Orion (at left).
A Bonus Aurora from Arizona
I was just north of the Mexican border, at a latitude 32° North, more than 20° farther south than at home in Alberta. But what should appear in my sky but … aurora!
A selfie of me observing the great red aurora of October 10, 2024, from southern Arizona.
On October 9, and then again more so on October 10, a great solar storm brought Northern Lights down to me. And indeed across all of Canada and the U.S. The result for me was a red glow to the north — the tops of distant auroral curtains I would have seen filling my sky at home.
A time-lapse of an Arizona aurora, using a 15mm wide-angle lens shooting nearly 400 forty-second exposures. View it in-line here. Enlarge to a full screen view. There is no sound.
Above is a time-lapse video of the aurora that night, from a camera aimed due north for four hours. The red curtains come and go through the night.
This is a 360° panorama covering the entire sky and extending up to the zenith at centre, capturing a rare SAR arc across the Arizona sky in the pre-dawn hours of October 11, 2024.
The remarkable feature that night, October 10/11, was not the aurora, but what is called a SAR (Stable Auroral Red) arc that persisted all night. It appeared as a diffuse red band across the sky, created by heat energy leaking into the upper atmosphere during the solar storm. SAR arcs can accompany an aurora but are not auroras themselves.
This panorama takes in a rare confluence of skyglows in a colourful dawn sky.
By dawn the next morning, now October 11, the tall Zodiacal Light was prominent alongside the magenta SAR arc to the north (left) and the winter Milky Way to the south (right). There’s even a short pillar of light that might be an aurora fragment, or the tail of the comet!
The Comet Returns
However, toward the end of my 11-night marathon of deep-sky imaging, the bright head of the comet was to be rising into the evening sky for Part 2 of its apparition. Below is a shot from the evening of October 11, my last at Quailway. Yes, there it was, just above the Chiricahua Mountains. But it was a blip, barely visible in binoculars and to the camera. I had hoped for more.
This is Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) at far right, barely visible emerging into the evening sky and low in the twilight, on October 11, 2024. This view includes Venus at left. Venus was obvious; the comet was not!
With the Moon now waxing into the evening sky, my plan was to head back north, stopping at scenic spots on the trip home, to catch the comet over moonlit landscapes to the west in the dusk sky.
My first two nights, October 12 and 13, at the VLA Radio Observatory near Socorro, New Mexico, then farther north near Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, were both beset by clouds to the west. From images posted on-line, I knew the comet was improving. But it was eluding me.
October 14 & 15 — at Arches National Park, Utah
The next stop was Arches National Park in Utah, which I last visited in April 2015. The first night’s forecast for October 14 also looked to be cloudy. But October 15 was supposed to be clear. So I extended my stay by an extra night, thinking that might be my only chance.
As it turned out October 14 was fabulous (below). The comet was easily visible to the unaided eye as a classic comet in the west. I pointed it out to folks walking by at the Windows Arches area. And I could hear other people commenting on it. At last a comet! One that anyone could see — though it helped to be at a clear sky site like Arches.
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS at its finest in the evening sky, two days after its closest approach to Earth, and with it sporting a 10º- to 15º-long dust tail, and a narrow anti-tail pointed toward the horizon.
By then the Moon was well advanced in age to a bright gibbous phase, so the sky was by no means dark. It was deep blue in photos.
Still the comet showed up brilliantly; it had blossomed a lot in a couple of nights. Above, I framed it beside moonlit Turret Arch.
Below is a scene from the next night, October 15, my “back-up” night. The comet was certainly performing well after all. Even in the moonlight. In binoculars the tail stretched for the same length as the camera recorded it, some 15°.
This is a telephoto close-up Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over the red rocks of Arches National Park, Utah, on a superb moonlit night, October 15, 2024.
Indeed, that was my last view of the comet for a while, as clouds prevented any more shooting on the rest of my journey north through Idaho and Montana. I even hit a snowstorm in southern Montana.
Late October — Back at Home in Alberta
But the comet was not done yet! Through October, while it receded from us in distance, it climbed higher into our sky, placing it into a dark sky with the Moon now out of the way.
This is Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in a wide-angle nightscape scene over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on October 23, 2024.
On October 23, a short trip out to Dinosaur Provincial Park east of home allowed me to shoot the comet over the Alberta Badlands landscape, beside the setting summer Milky Way.
This is a telephoto lens framing of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in Ophiuchus on the night of October 30, 2024 near several large star clusters. The field of view is 15º by 10º so the tail extends for about 6º to 8º.
By a week later, on October 30, the comet had diminished in size and brightness, but still looked like a classic comet, here framed in a telephoto close-up as it passed near some bright star clusters. This was from my front yard. The chase was over.
Clouds and a trip to Norway starting November 4 prevented more opportunities to shoot the comet. (My travel schedule also kept me from writing this blog until now!)
It had been a good chase over a month, yielding images I was happy with. The photos from Utah and Arizona I could not have taken at home, even if the skies had been clear during the comet’s prime-time. (They weren’t!) And it was great to finally get back to my favourite haunts in southern Arizona and New Mexico after an absence of seven years.
In all, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS provided a fine finale to what has been a superb year of stargazing events and celestial sights.
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.
A red and green aurora lights the night on the Canadian prairie.
This was certainly a surprise aurora, with conditions officially registering as “quiet” early in the evening. However, checking Spaceweather.com showed the interplanetary magnetic field was tipped far south, a good sign.
So I made a point of checking after dark and sure enough, a fairly bright aurora was present all across the northern horizon. Conditions now registered “storm!”
The main image above is looking east, back over Saskatchewan. What was remarkable was the intense red curtains above the main green arc. These were invisible to the naked eye but the camera sure picked them up.
There was also an odd green band in the southern sky, above. Again, the green band was obvious to the naked eye, but the camera picked up an isolated red arc as well.
This is proving to be a quiet solar maximum, but the best displays often come on the downside of the cycle. So with luck we’ll be in for some good sky shows in the next couple of years.
The Amazing Sky 