Aurora Over Blue Ridge Mountains
The aurora returned to middle latitudes on a weekend when I was on a plane back to the USA. I was sad I had possibly missed yet another great opportunity to see the aurora from my home town! I watched the forecast for the remainder of the week, and when a short video popped up on my YouTube feed from Michael over at Late Night Astronomy that another large CME had just occurred, I decided we should attempt to see it on the prime night, rather than trying the second night when, in all honesty, the show is a lot less impressive.
Traffic was bad and I had chosen to go to the office that day. The Blue Ridge Parkway was still closed from hurricane Helene leaving our easy and fast viewing spots limited. I chose Hanging Rock Overlook north of New Castle, VA.
Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) nestled in a green band of the Northern Lights | EOS R modded w/ Sigma 28mm F/1.4 ART | 6s ISO 2500 28mm @F/2.8
The show did not disappoint. I had not arrived too late, but right on time! The aurora to the north was very visible and it wasn’t until I had taken out my camera did I realize that the lights were even straight above us! I hadn’t expected anything above us as the media hype for this one did not seem to be as crazy as the May 2024 CME.
Around 22:30, we were even able to see a strong, red aurora to the west with the naked eye: something I was not able to see as I arrived on site very late for the May opportunity.
Canon 6D with Sigma 14mm F/1.8 ART | 3.9s ISO 3200 f/2.5 - frame from a timelapse with interval of 7 seconds between each photo
Canon 6D with Sigma 14mm F/1.8 ART | 3.9s ISO 3200 f/2.5 - another frame from the Timelapse, showing how dynamic the scene was! This dynamism is best captured in the form of a timelapse.
Light in Motion
Timelapse allows for seeing the unseen: views and events that are imposible to perceive on the human timescale. It can condense a changing scene over the course of HOURS to several seconds for extremely percievable change.
My First Aurora Timelapse
After some imaging with my 14mm, I put it on my 6Da on a tripod and set a 7 second interval with 4 second exposures to just capture the view we were under. This interval is MUCH shorter than what I am used to with Milky Way timelapse, but the aurora can be slow or quickly changing and is generally on a much faster timeline of change than the night sky through the night. Afterall, the stars and nebula aren’t actually changing in my timelapses, but their position in the sky and the atmosphere in front of them do.
I was very happy to see just how much the light show was changing this far south. The flare-up of green was not visible to us. It was only after I reviewed the frames in my camera did I know it even happened!
Someone had planted a flag at the viewpoint, somewhat distracting both visually and auditory as it was breezy, but the northern lights still took over my attention.
Canon EOS R (modded) with Sigma 14mm F/1.8 ART | 10s ISO 6400 f/1.8 - frame from a timelapse. CP drop-in filter was on, resulting in need for longer exposure. Whoops!
