I had just fallen asleep tonight, when my cell phone rang. It also acts as my alarm clock, and my first thought was “Nooooo, it can’t be 6:30 yet! I just closed my eyyyyyyyes!”

Instead, it was Libby telling me to look out the north window. Without my contacts in or glasses on my face, everything is blurry. But what I saw was a bright green sort of blurry. Skippy and I suited up (it’s 13° right now, at 10:50pm), and went outside.

I’ve never seen the northern lights before, so this was an amazing, first-time experience for me.

I managed to capture some of it, as you can see, but a lot is still missing. It was moving very fast, with the fastest bits turning red before disappearing.

About 1/4 of the visible sky was green, though most of it was just hazy. All the action was happening just above the trees.

I had just woken up, was wearing glasses (makes it hard to look through the viewfinder), it was 13°, and I found that the best shutter speed for capturing the action was around 45-55 seconds. My camera’s slowest built-in shutter speed is 30 seconds. I had also left my remote shutter release back in the house. So I got to stand there, holding the shutter button with my exposed hand, counting seconds out loud, while trying not to shake the camera. I think I’m going to have to prep my equipment before going to bed, so I’ll be better prepared next time. But, I think I got some decent shots despite the sub-optimal circumstances. :-)