06/04/2025
Those that know me, are aware I have not had the best of luck chasing aurora’s for the past 20 years or so. So many times I’ve been clouded out when the aurora is at its peek. So after an unsuccessful attempt up till 2am Sunday night, I went back to Chocorua Lake again last night.
After a long wait in the dark, watching the bats chase the mosquitoes on the lake, and listening to the owls, some decent color began to emerge around midnight or so. It then got real intense around 1am, and lasted a good hour. On my camera display, I could see I had finally attained an image worthy of my gallery wall. The varying colors, spires, and glow was constantly changing, and absolutely beautiful to witness.
The camera does pick up the strong colors and definition, that the human eye can not, but tonight it was even fairly visible to the naked eye.
When I shoot night images, I use a shutter delay of 5 seconds, to ensure no vibrations. The exposures were around ten seconds at f1.4. With this in mind, if something cool happened, like a meteor, by the time I could push the button, with the delay, it would be passed before the shutter would even open.
While I have had poor luck for decades, the gods favored me in the wee hours this time. The brightest meteor I can recall ever seeing, streaked across the sky during the aurora, in perfect alignment, and timing with my already open 10 second shutter. So amazing and well worth the very long wait:). Feel free to share.
Prints available for sale at my gallery in Jackson, or through my web site: www.whitemountainphoto.com
