Dancing with the Stars

Wasn’t it a wonderful day yesterday? It was a brilliant summer day, finally.

And it was a stunning summer night, with a light show like I have never seen before! Here’s what happened. I got  home from work a bit later than usual, and I was tired. I stayed up very late, reading, the night before and I really felt like I needed sleep. I took big Baron for an energetic walk – he likes the warm weather too – hoping that I’d wake up a bit. No luck.  But  just after supper my iPhone made the special ding ding alert that means there’s something going on in the sky.

The app is Solar Monitor and it tracks a number of very sci-fi sounding characteristics of the cosmos, including solar storms and the mysterious Planetary K Index – the Aurora index. There were quite a few solar storms happening in the past few weeks so I know that there would be Auroras, but the clouds have been obscuring the night sky all spring long and it’s been disappointing for anyone wanting to see the stars! Like us!

However, this night was not too bad for once and I told myself that once it was fully dark, at this time of year close to 11:00 pm (!) I’d take a walk to the road no trees) and  take a look. Just a quick peek, I was so tired.

But I also promised myself that if there was an aurora, I wouldn’t spend all night taking photos. I wanted to simply enjoy the show. No worrying about seeing camera settings in the dark, what ISO to use etc…

And OMG! What I saw blew me away – still photos cannot communicate the Aurora of last night. It wasn’t so much the colours, or the patterns this time. It was the motion. This aurora was soft lightning. Not big bold flashes of light,  but soft fuzzy lights appearing out of no where, growing in intensity, flickering and dancing across they night sky, only to vanish in a heartbeat,just as they had materialized,  extinguished by another flare a burst of a glow from the black sky, this pattern of flares and dances and disappearance continued for at least an hour.

There was a whippoorwill chirping somewhere close, the crickets and frogs were signing – all of nature was moving and reveling in this night. I was more than transfixed, and 100% energized. Not sleepy anymore! No concert ticket, no hockey game, nothing your money could buy could have bought an experience to match this.

And after an hour or so, of observing, enjoying, appreciating and emoting, I couldn’t wait to take just a few images so that I could remember this night when the sky was dancing with the stars.

Here are a few (click the thumbnail to see the larger version):