Dancing Auroras Overhead

the poetry of an epic solar storm

Greetings on this Mother’s Day from our amazing mother earth!

As you may have heard, the strongest solar storm to hit our atmosphere in 20 years arrived on Friday, and circumstances aligned for thousands (maybe even millions) of folks to see the dancing lights for the first time without the aid of a camera. I was among them, though of course I had my camera, and took photos for hours upon end. Unusually I was not at home for most of the activity. I was at the beautiful Alderbrook Resort about four miles from home. Let me tell you how and why this came to be:

The beautiful Alderbrook Lodge under the coronal aurora

Last summer my husband Kevin and his brother Sterling purchased a 30 year old power boat with a small inheritance from their sister Debbie and had been taking afternoon trips in waterways of south Puget Sound. They had the boat serviced earlier this spring in preparation for the 2024 boating season and found out that the boat trailer needed new brakes, and the cost was several thousand dollars.

The Deborah Lynn and moon from the Alderbrook dock

Our son-in-law John rebuilds cars, formerly for work, and now for fun, as he is an avid off-road Jeeper. He volunteered to come out for a weekend and do the work with Kevin. Thus began preparations for Jennifer (our daughter) and John’s Mother’s Day weekend visit. And preparations requiring a place to moor the boat while the trailer was being repaired. Our local marina had no berths available, but the swanky resort did, and Kevin and Sterling brought the vessel Deborah Lynn here Wednesday night, with the help of our two employees.

Kevin and Sterling aboard the Deborah Lynn early into the coronal storm

Kevin and I came back Wednesday night thinking I might be able to photograph a small part of the Milky Way to the Northeast. That didn’t work, but we scoped out possible locations for photographing the Northern Lights, since we’d heard about all the solar activity in the preceding days and possibility of a strong storm Friday night.

We made dinner reservations at the lodge’s restaurant on Friday night, and Kevin had his aurora notifications app open during our two-hour dining experience watching the numbers climb. By the time we finished our meal, the percentage chance of seeing the aurora on the horizon was 100% and the chance to see in overhead was 94%.

These kind of numbers are so very rare, especially at our latitude of 47 degrees. Usually when I am able to obtain images of the aurora from home, the possibility of seeing lights on the horizon is under 5%, and rarely as high as 20%. The solar storm began at 11 a.m. and dark could not come fast enough as we spent the day repairing the boat brakes and cleaning the boat after its winter storage. [Hard earned tip: keep a dehumidifier running in the boat while being stored, otherwise mold and mildew will appear on every surface.]

Aurora huge over the horizon looking north

Kevin and I realized the end of the dock where our boat was moored would be the best place to take photos with a wide open view from southwest to northeast. But docks move and usually photographing the aurora means long exposures from 3 seconds, upward to 15 seconds, depending on the strength and speed of the storm, which would produce nothing but blurry photos.

After work Friday Kevin set about constructing a portable platform he could fasten to the dock’s pilings with a ratchet strap. He attached rings on each corner of the platform and used bungee cords to secure my tripod in place. This allowed me to photograph from a fixed non-moving position and to keep my equipment safe should the platform get bumped.

My camera taking photos while I take a handheld photo with a 1 second exposure

We set up and began picking up some color in camera while it was still civil twilight. Kevin left to take Sterling home and to retrieve my phone which I’d forgotten and needed to keep taps with a friend who was also out aurora scouting in Union. While he was gone we approached true dark shortly before 11 p.m. and began to see white pillars and a hazy fingers of clouds filling the sky moving directly overhead and down to the horizon in every direction, and we began to see other colors as well, pinks, and greens— fully visible like a dome over the entire sky. Not wanting Kevin to miss this incredible sight, Jennifer texted him and he ran out on our deck at home. All of us, Sterling and his wife at home, Kevin at our home, Jennifer, John, and I lay flat on the ground, gazing up in awe and wonder, gathering images to share with others, and saying pretty much nonstop, “Oh, my God, do you see that? Do you see that?? It’s incredible!”

The coronal aurora directly overhead, handheld photo

When the overhead coronal aurora died down Kevin jumped in the car and returned to the dock, and the four of us stayed, watching the lights until 12:30 a.m. All of us were exhausted and readied for sleep, basking in the glow of a once-in-a lifetime experience.

The Lady Alderbrook vessel under the aurora

Saying goodnight to the Alderbrook dock. The Deborah Lynn is the second boat in from the left. The Lady Alderbrook is on the far right.

But while brushing my teeth, from the bathroom window I saw a giant white cloud heading from the south to the west, and realized there was no way I was going to sleep during this epic activity.

I set my camera up on our deck about 1 a.m. watching a curtain of color ribbon the sky. I finally turned off my camera and went to sleep at 4 a.m. as we approached nautical twilight.

The curtain of light that move in from the south, looking due west

The experience ended with memories to last a life time, and over 1,500 images between my two cameras. I had set up on the Alderbrook dock with the intention of having several hundred images to combine into a time-lapse movie of 30 seconds or so, but I kept turning off my camera to show resort guests looking for the lights what they could see in camera versus with the unaided eye. With the exception of a few trips with Kevin, and one with a friend (also named Cathy), this is the first time I’ve been out under the stars with other humans, and it was so much fun to show them the glory of what I could see, and I think I’ve made a night photography convert out of one high school boy!

Thanks so much for reading along and celebrating the glory of the infinite. I ended up with several very short clips and a one-minute time lapse from home that I’ve combined into one 90 second movie you can watch here and on YouTube.

One last image, with seals, from home