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Liking the Lights

A Wonder of Science

What causes them?

You saw it in the sky

  This was shot just north of Blair Nebraska along the Missouri River shortly after sunset. Digital ISO 200 on all of these. Canon Digital Rebel, RAW files. This was around a 50 second exposure at F/3.5. They were stronger shortly before this but I wasn't there and set up yet.

  Same.

 A few hours later another peak occurred and was different than all the others of the night. These were very close looking. They didn't look far off the ground at all. This was around 11-midnight.

  These were by far the coolest thing I'd ever seen....at this point anyway.

I left here to fly to the river but got spooked at the river by something in the water!

  I unwantingly went back to the boat dock to try and hurry and snap a couple. It's dark down there and I was sure someone was around after the splash in the water(likely a fish, but it was right in front of me and I'd never in my life seen a fish jump in the river).

I've been told in many e-mails now it was probably a beaver. Probably right based on where it was located.

  More pics during paranoia. I was slightly spooked out shooting this along the rocks. What I thought happened was someone down there threw something at me that splashed so big in the water. It doesn't take much when it's dark and cold and you are alone near a river.

One more quick shot before saying to hell with the river this go around. I had been shooting the earlier shots right down there on the rocks. I convinced myself I didn't care to go down there at this point. These were all still roughly 40-50 second exposures, wide open.

  A peak just getting going.

This had weakened from earlier and went well back north to just a white ring. Then I noticed it had been slowly drifting back south, but not getting stronger. It was sooooo amazing when it got overhead and you could see these amazing high speed vapor flashes just going crazy overhead and to the SOUTH. Looked like fog moving faster then 1000 mph as it'd flash around.

Those flashes don't show up at all. The vapor flashes were above this picture and to the left and right across the whole sky and even well south of straight up. The northern lights didn't even need to be all that strong as they were happening.

    Around 1:40 a.m. or so. Bored, lol.

  In case you can't see it.

Here it comes.......

  The clouds moving in across the north actually made for an even cooler show/look. This happened fast. I was like, ummmm what is happening now.

  This wall was horizon to horizon and arcing south of straight up. It looked to go into this "hole" straight up. There was even some short ones streaming from the south into this hole. All of this wall going up there was very very red to look at.

Crazy show.

Think this is looking northeast. Ok, this is when it really really went to town and into that "hole" overhead. I think the time on my cam was like 1:50 a.m.

  Every one of these shots is wide open at 18mm(slr equiv of like 30mm). This is looking due north. Exposures were now down to like 25 seconds.

Most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. It beat every storm experience I've seen, maybe because it was...well.....look at it!

  Just adding a few extra pics.......