I've been so busy working on projects this winter that I haven't really gotten out much to do some of the things I normally love doing. One of those things is photographing ice. This past weekend I got out on the snowshoes for a few hours and found some really fascinating ice formations. This was my favorite piece.
Before last night, it had been a while since I'd had a completely sleepless night. The reason? Last night the Aurora came back in a major way, with what I would say is easily one of the top 3 geomagnetic storm events that I've witnessed in northeast Minnesota. I say came back because for the last few years we've been in solar minimum and aurora events have been pretty scarce. I remember back in 2019 spaceweather.com stated that if forecasters are correct, the next solar maximum could be in full swing by 2023. That prediction appears to be correct.
I went out about a half hour after sunset and stayed out pretty much the entire night. Since getting home around 3:00 AM I've been working on the images and timelapse videos that I made. One of the most remarkable characteristics of this storm was how long the corona lasted (the feature that you see when you look straight up into the sky, where it looks like the lights are streaming down from the heavens). The corona lasted for most of the night and there really weren't any significant lulls in activity. The lights were bright and active all night long, with only a few very brief moments where they quieted down before flaring back up again. Awesome doesn't even come close to describing the experience.
Here is another image from the night of February 19, 2014. Such an awesome and unforgettable night! 8 years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. I spent the entire night outside photographing the lights. They were active all night and I just couldn't pull myself away from them.
Rework of a fun shot from February 19, 2014 at 2:39 AM. I remember this night well. It was an amazing aurora storm that was bright enough to overpower the bright moonlight that night.
I'm longing to see some storm clouds like this again. There's nothing quite like the cloud structure that we see in the summer and fall as thunderstorms make their way across the landscape.
What a magical night this was under the stars! The southwest is amazing if you like views of the night sky. And the still/quiet air that often accompanies desert nights is the perfect complement to these views.
This area within Vermilion Cliffs National Monument has interesting foregrounds literally everywhere you look. Some of my favorite foregrounds were these areas that had curvy lines in the sandstone. After looking around for a bit I found one spot that had this nice wandering line leading right out to the Milky Way.
I've been digging through the photo archives a lot this winter and coming across some cool stuff that I never really did anything with until now. Such as this image of Minnesota's tallest waterfall at night, in the moonlight, complete with a moonbow. Grand Portage State Park, MN.