The Northern Lights perform
We drove north to Coldfoot—into the Arctic Circle—and then farther on to a village called Wiseman.
A small mining community, Wiseman was founded by gold miners who abandoned Slate Creek (later renamed Coldfoot) in 1919 to try their luck there.
Today it is one of the best light-free places in Alaska to view the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis. It’s three miles from the Dalton Highway and with only 13 residents, it’s easy enough to tell everyone to turn off their lights at night.
We headed up to Wiseman on Thursday at 10:30pm. We were supposed to go on Wednesday but it was so cloudy we negotiated to wait it out until Thursday and hope for better weather. We were blessed with perfect conditions.
So all we had to do was wait for the aurora to turn on the show.
Actually we could see the aurora gearing up while we were still in Coldfoot, so we were confident of seeing at least some activity.
I’m not going to go into all the science of the aurora. Even today there isn’t a full understanding of how it’s formed, but it has to do with the interaction between solar winds and the earth’s magnetosphere.
This is what a sign in the Fairbanks cultural centre said. ‘The aurora receives its power from the sun. When sunspots flare on the sun’s surface, charged particles radiate out across the galaxy on the solar wind. About three days later some of these charged particles—protons and electrons—reach earth. The earth’s magnetic field pushed these particles toward the poles. Like a neon sign, these ‘charged particles “light up” gases in the upper atmosphere 60 to 500 miles above the earth, producing a colourful array of light swirling and rippling throughout the sky.’
We saw a 40-minute film at the cultural centre that said severe aurora displays can and do interfere with public utilities. Apparently a whole electrical network in Canada was knocked out in 1989.
But in Wiseman we didn’t worry much about the science. We were there for the show—and a show we got.
It took me several goes to figure out the best camera settings and I still don’t know if I found the very best ones. I was using a Canon 600D with an EFS 15–85mm lens.
My settings were an f-stop of 3.5 (couldn’t get as low as 2.8), a shutter speed of 15 seconds (10 wasn’t enough) and an ISO of 800. I set the camera to manual focus and put that on infinity. Here are the results.
The show started to die down and we were going to head home about 1:30am. We voted to wait a while to see if another display materialised. Wow, we were glad we waited. Most of the pics here are from a display performing, off and on, for about 10 minutes just after 1:35am.
About the colour
The most common auroral colour is yellow-green. It is produced by oxygen atoms about 60 miles above the earth. High altitude oxygen atoms (about 200 miles up) glow a rare red, while nitrogen molecules emit a purple tinged with red. But keep in mind that the camera sees these better than the naked eye. That said, I could see the colour in these.
P.S. I decided that these didn’t need captions.
Wonderful experience. I would do anything and give up everything to witness that. Colour me green with envy.
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Totally breathtaking.
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Yay, I am so happy you got to see that wonder of nature. We just took the lights for granted when I was a kid. Silly us.
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Hard to imagine taking them for granted, but I think that’s normal with kids.
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Nope…they don’t really need captions! Awesome to witness the Aurora! Thanks for the information provided here about the reasons for its occurrence… 🙂
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Thought I’d better add a bit of science. 🙂
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What a remarkable show lights by nature Peggy!
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Mother Nature outdid herself. 🙂
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Wonderful, just great Leggy. I am taking it all in. I can’t tell you how much your photos of ‘light giving’ means to us here in the dark of Canberra..
Please Peggy, Aurora to Australia is manna to heaven. 😉
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Thanks Gerard. I feel so lucky to have seen such a great display. Not sure, but I think it’s possible to see the southern aurora in Tasmania. Must go check. 🙂
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Wow Peggy; this is spectacular. I hope I will be lucky to see this one day!.
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I hope you do too.
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Fantastic Peggy!
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Thanks.
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Amazing. What an incredible experience. You did well to capture these lovely shots
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Thanks. There was a lot of trial and error. 🙂
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It’s fantastic 🙂
Can I do something to be there right now? 😀
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Maybe you can teleport on the next wave of lights. 🙂
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Hahaha! I would love to do it 🙂
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Mystic
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and magical. 🙂
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What a wonderful experience, Peggy. No doubt this is one trip that will remain in your memory for some time 🙂
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I think the memory will help me dream at night.
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Awesome! I’m so glad you were able to experience this. Thank you for the explanation as well as the great images. 🙂
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You are most welcome. Thanks for stopping by.
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These are so beautiful! Looking forward to getting up to Alaska one of these days and seeing for myself 😃
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I’ll tell them to leave on the lights! 🙂
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Thank you for sharing these great photos! What a beautiful sight and a humbling reminder of how small us humans really are.
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What a beautiful way of putting it. Thanks for stopping by.
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How absolutely cool! I continue to live through your adventures old class-mate. Keep them coming.
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Thanks Mike, I bought you a little booklet on sandhill cranes in Alaska. Email me your address. 🙂
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So beautiful. Would love to see these someday.
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I hope you do too. They really are inspiring.
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How lucky you are to have seen this beautiful display of nature. How lucky we are that you’ve shared it! Thank you!
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I feel extremely lucky and would be cross with myself if I didn’t share.
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Really cool Peggy. Someday I’ll experience the Northern Lights
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I look forward to seeing your pics of them.
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Gosh more lights that have human forms, must be where the words in the song about the northern lights come from. “They call them the heavenly dancers, dancing in the sky” You have captured them so well, I have never seen human forms in the photos of aurora borealis previously. Thank you Peggy, they are terrific. Dorothy.
dorothysstories.wordpress.com
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Thanks Dorothy. It’s amazing how many forms you see as the lights swirl above you.
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So beautiful, Peggy! Truly a one of nature’s great wonders.
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Yes indeed. Thanks for stopping by.
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I say I don’t have a bucket list — but if I did/do, this would be on it.
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It would be on mine too. 🙂 Guess I’ll have to go again.
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That looks amazing, I would love to see the lights first hand!
Love Rhi xx
smilesweetiehq.wordpress.com
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Oh do try to see them. They are so fantastic.
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I’m so glad you got to see this glorious display of nature, Peggy. Beautiful!
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We were so thrilled to have them perform so beautifully.
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I saw the green mostly, with only tint of pink. U got nice colour here
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Thanks so much.
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Given the difficult conditions you had to take these photos in, they turned out great! Congrats on experiencing Mother Nature’s “ballet.”
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Thanks, we were so blessed to see them.
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Wow! No other words.
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That pretty much sums it up. 🙂
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Lovely photos! Night shots are tricky and I can only imagine with a view like you had. My husband is working on perfecting his night photography and I know he’d love to have the opportunity that you did 🙂
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Night photography is a huge challenge and with the light moving even more so. I hope your husband gets a chance to photograph them—and take you along too. 🙂
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Wow totally amazing! Thanks so much for sharing with us Peggy!!
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So glad I was able to share.
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so nice of you!
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Wow, can’t wait until l get to experience such an amazing sight. Thanks for reminding me about my goals to travel, and see the awe and wonder of this great world we live in. Take care Cally.
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Thank you Cally. I hope you get to see the Northern Lights soon. They are totally awe-inspiring. You take care too.
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We once saw multi-colored northern lights in Scotland during sunspot activity. It was the most wonderful experience and humbling too. Have fun.
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So glad you have seen them too. Most humbling.
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How magical! I love reading both your travel and cooking posts. Thanks so much for sharing! x
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Thanks for joining in. I really appreciate it. Hope you are enjoying Sydney.
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AHmazing! So glad you waited too!! Isn’t the Universe just spectacular…there’s nothing as magical as Mother Nature and God, the stars, moon, sun, planets, galaxies…and it’s all free!! Continuing enjoying and sharing your experiences!! 🙂
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We all were so glad we decided to stay a little longer. Mother Nature repaid us very kindly and very richly.
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She sure did!!! 🙂
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Thank you for posting your amazing pics, Peggy. The aurora borealis is something so many people long to see, and your photos have captured the dancing display so well. The lights are one of Nature’s most wonderful phenomena.
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It’s amazing how much they move around. Wish I could have figured out how to take a video of them.
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Oh wow! What an absolutely marvellous experience. That must have been so unbelievably incredible. How do you convey this by words and pictures alone? To see it in person must have been beyond amazing oh wow! Thanks for sharing your story and the journey getting there.
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I wish everyone could have seen them. As you said, it was amazing beyond oh wow!.
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Off Topic- Aurora Borealis (Just saw this on AOL late this afternoon)
The northern US might see a rare aurora borealis April 30th 2016 9:00am EST Saturday.
If you live in the northern U.S., you might want to go outside Saturday night and look up. You could catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a minor geomagnetic storm watch.
Those who are most likely to see the display live in the most northern states, like Montana, Minnesota and North Dakota.
http://tinyurl.com/zu3gj52
Sy S.
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We were flying across the Pacific Ocean when you posted this, so I didn’t get a chance to reply. I wonder if people in the far north of the USA did see this?
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Very interesting! Getting into the science (geophysics) and supernatural associations, would lead to continual and perhaps contradictory comments. This is a
remarkable share!
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Thanks. So glad you like it.
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amazing
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We felt so lucky to see the lights.
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I can well imagine 🙂 you are blessed
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