now that i've gotten some sleep after the previous week closed out with 3 consecutive nights of aurora activity, i've got some downtime to go through 800+ photos and update this. wednesday night in healy looked like a slow bomb went off in the sky over the course of 8+ hours. it was easily the best display of my short aurora chasing career, and probably the best display i'd ever seen.
temperatures were just a shade below zero, but i ran around chasing shots and never felt cold. at one point i just stopped and threw up my hands because there was so much going on in the sky that i couldn't decide what direction to point my camera. and it was bright, too. typically i have to take a 5-7 second exposure to capture the dimmer, more usual lights; tonight i was taking 1.5 second exposures and the images were turning out plenty bright.
the photos above and below are of what's called the "corona". it only appears during intense displays and always at the peak of the sky overhead. i'd only seen it once before.
the wind suddenly kicked up at 315a and that's what finally drove me inside for the night. from what i read later online, the display was still flickering at 7a that morning- and the forecast for thursday night was even better. excited all day thursday about the "active" aurora forecast for that night, i asked around to a couple locals about where we could go that would be more elevated and away from the lights of healy. i settled on a spot 20 miles north of healy called june creek. cary and i drove up there after sundown. when we arrived it was -10 degrees, but it was a beautiful location with more snow and zero light pollution. the lights started and formed a big green bow right after we arrived. i stood outside ready with my camera and watched as the bow did not change or move or do anything. after two hours, i declared the night a "dud" and drove back to healy. i couldn't feel my left foot, which thankfully is not necessary for operating the pedals of an automatic transmission.
friday we drove back to anchorage to catch cary's flight out. exhausted from two nights of staying up late in the cold, i went to bed at 830p at my friend's house on the outskirts of anchorage. while checking my messages one last time, i noticed several notices popping up on a facebook page called "aurora lovers" that i belong to. people were going crazy about the lights in the sky in anchorage (it's sort of a rarity to get a good display in anchorage because of the city lights), so i stole my friend's car and drove to my rv parked at another friend's house to grab my camera and tripod. the show started off slow but it was a nice display over the chugach mountains.
after a couple hours standing on a hill (without my bear spray- and every sound sounded like a bear approaching), the clouds moved in so i went home. i can rarely wait until the next day to look at my photos of the aurora, so i immediately uploaded them. within 30 minutes another burst of notices appeared- more frenzied than the previous one, stating that the sky was going bonkers. i peeked out the front door and sure enough, the sky was going bonkers. back out with my camera and this time staying in the driveway- i captured some of the more colorful and unique coronas i'd ever seen in person or in pictures.
i was so happy to see clouds and rain in the forecast for saturday night because i desperately needed sleep. it's always nice to be in anchorage to see friends and resupply, but i'm already getting anxious to get back up north. i have a couple repairs to do on the rv and am guessing i'll be ready to hit the road by thursday. much of southcentral and interior alaska is getting snow right now. this guy is excited for ski season and has been doing squats and lunges to keep warm during the long cold nights standing outside to get ready for the access that skiing gives to the backcountry. i should have my website updated with recent aurora images in the next couple nights.
ps: i was asked several times if the first image is that of the bus from the book and movie "into the wild". it is not. it is a junked bus that was at the edge of the rv park in healy. the brewery next door displays the bus from the movie. the actual bus is 20+ miles up the stampede trail on the north end of healy. if the snow is good when i return, i may ski out to the bus but am more interested in photographing the wolves in that area than i am in seeing the bus. if i get out there i will get some pictures though for those that are curious about what it looks like.
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