After a summer with very little solar storm activity, some peaks have started to occur as we move into autumn. Last week saw a night with very strong aurora activity, visible across much of North America, even as far south as Ohio and Oregon. Unfortunately, Vancouver was under complete cloud cover during that display.
Last night, another burst of activity was forecast, and although the strength looked only barely high enough to be visible as far south as Vancouver, I decided to take advantage of a clear sky and new moon and see if I could capture anything. From around 9:00pm to 11:30pm, there was relatively little activity, mainly a constant but faint green glow on the horizon, almost invisible to the eye, but after 11:30pm, the display got considerably stronger, being both clearly visible to the eye and to the camera.
Most of the time it stayed as a steady, twisting green on the horizon, but occasionally there were these wonderful red and purple bursts of activity higher in the sky, lighting up the area around the Big Dipper.
This was photographed in a small bay in the village of Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver, looking north towards Bowyer Island, Anvil Island, Bowen Island and Gambier Island. On the right of the shot are the west slopes of the mountains in Cypress Provincial Park. The post is one of three that appear to be the remnants of a small pier.
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
If you're interested in any...
A total dream of mine to see this. I think that I did while camping in upstate Michigan this summer, but no one else saw it and thought I was nuts. It was more of the green flashes and it was hard to tell as we were in the woods. Fav!
Absolutely wonderful, I tried to photograph the Norther Lights in Finland earlier this year and it was very difficult (and cold!) This is exactly the shot I wish I had been able to take! Fav.
I'm sooo jealous! I've always wanted to see the Northern Lights! And what amazing/surreal/magical/otherwortldly lights they are. I didn't realize you could see the NLs in Vancouver - I used to live in Bellingham, WA which is a 45 minute drive from Vancouver; I wish I would have known to look for them. At any rate, wonderful wonderful image, FAV for sure!
