I live in a place that is dark enough, and far enough north to get northern lights activity. Unfortunately, I also live in a place that is often cloudy. This means that I have to be on call on clear winter nights in order to catch a glimpse of the elusive lights. This weekend I finally saw them!

Check out my latest aurora photos

If you just want to see the latest photos I captured, check out the album on Flickr.

Flickr Album: Alaska.Aurora borealis

Read on for more details about the quest.

Knowing when to look

I have an app on my phone called “Aurora” that has a forecast for northern lights in my area, a map of best locations, and a bunch of other maps and data that I don’t quite understand. Something about solar winds.

Here’s what the map might look like:

When I’m in the green, orange, or red, it’s go time. My phone sends me a notification. If I’m still awake, I scramble like a firefighter with my camera bag and multiple layers of clothing and drive about 5 minutes to the west coast of Mendenhall Lake. Sometimes in my cozy warm bed I’m reluctant to venture out, but I live in Alaska. It’s a five minute drive. When am I ever going to be this close to the northern lights in a dark sky? My sense of adventure and quest for photos usually gets me out the door.

Location

So far I’m just looking for a location with some wide open space, and low ambient light, and I choose my trusty Mendenhall Lake. The sweet sweet snowy mountains and glacier as backdrop are a bonus. I’ve had the best success from the trail parking lot, but I usually also venture out to the lake shore.

I’m hoping to branch out to other spots, but having this dark, open, and car-accessible spot so close to home is certainly convenient.

Photography

Some notes, so far.

• Reducing shake. You’re going to need a tripod. If the moon isn’t out, you might need a really long exposure. I use a remote trigger to avoid shake. Also helps prevent frozen hands. Turn off VR on your lens if you’re on a tripod.
• Focus. If it’s truly pitch dark, auto focus won’t work. Figure out the manual focus at infinity or long distance ahead of time where it’s light so you can manually set it in the dark. If it’s low light, set your focus, then switch to manual so it doesn’t try to re focus at every shot.
• Exposure. Typical night shot techniques, depending on just how dark it is. For moderate darkness, I set up on Aperture priority to open as much as possible, then played with reducing ISO film speed and shutter speed to see how clear and blur-free I could get. I ended up playing with shorter exposure times to try to catch them with less blur when the lights started to move rapidly. In very dark, I ended up having to do ridiculous long exposures (think 30 seconds). It’s very dark here when it’s dark.
• Flashlight/ headlamp. I have one that has a red bulb setting so I can see without blasting my retinas in low light and messing with the photos during long exposures. it’s gonna be dark. Bring a light.
• Shoot until you catch some. The first time I went out I couldn’t see the hand in front of my face for the darkness. I could not see any lights, but my camera captured the eerie green sky with a very long exposure. The camera can catch some cool things.
• I had to remind myself to look up and watch them shimmer. They really do shimmer. Like in a video. Obviously but it still surprised me.

I’ve caught them twice. I hope to catch them again!