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Tag Archives: Methow Valley

Did you see the Northern Lights last night? I had seen predictions of a good show but a partly cloudy sky didn’t leave me too optimistic. I did get a camera and tripod out, just in case. Shortly after dark, a friend texted me an amazing shot of bright red color from her phone! I quickly found my warmest coat and put on some boots and grabbed the setup. I started with a 24-70 mm lens but quickly went inside for the 14-24 mm lens. The light show covered so much of the sky. I longed to be somewhere other than home where my view is cluttered with power lines, homes with all their lights burning and the infernal light of the Winthrop hockey rink. Sigh. Still, it was a great show, til the clouds rolled in.

When I first got outside, the lights were pinkish with green but then turned more orange and red. The show started in the northwest, then moved across the sky to mostly north and then at the same time, they appeared to the east and southeast! Clouds added some real drama to the lights. The last photo shows the clouds illuminated from above by the Aurora and from below by the hockey rink.

As often happens, I needed to get up to relieve myself around 2:30 or so and I noticed that the sky to the north was exceptionally bright. I knew that there was a strong possibility of an Aurora Borealis so my camera was ready. I struggled with my sleepy self but managed to get outside and make some images til the blue hour began and Aurora faded. After seeing other people’s photos, I am pretty sure I missed most of a pretty good light show.

A few things I saw last week.

The last two months have been dominated by gray skies. Whenever the sun makes an appearance, it seems like we should take notice. Here are a few spots of sunshine at the end of the afternoon, yesterday. I couldn’t decide between color or black and white.

The Aurora Borealis made an appearance last night and it was quite the show. Even STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) showed up. See the last two photos. I was outside from about 9:30 til 11 and here are a few of my images. It might happen again tonight but the weather forecast doesn’t look good. I am lucky to live in a place where I can still see the northern lights despite an increase in excessive lighting here in the valley.