Aurora Gazing
I would love to be able to do this one again differently, but given that I found out than an aurora was happening the day of, I can’t be too bummed about it. Grateful to have even gotten to see such a rare phenomenon here in Washington at all.
Spent the first part of the night drive trying to see it, then there it was all at once.
These are all unedited pictures from my iPhone 16 camera.
Peak! G5!
We could see the aurora dancing with our eyes, but it was less striking and colorful by now
Whitehorse on the drive back through Darrington. Sleep deprived - pretty much did an all nighter I guess.
Notes
The one regret from this one is not getting out sooner in the night and just picking a damn spot. I would love to learn more about auroras and what determines their strength, but this one was so strong the light pollution didn’t even matter. It might’ve been worth it to even see it somewhere off I-5 instead of trying to get to WA Pass and spending the peak moments in the car. From some other auroras we’ve had this year, I notice they can happen quite early too (like 1-2 hours after sunset), so it’s not worth trying to optimize the gazing to the darkest part of the night.
I also learned auroras are quite faint in person. I do remember the colors in the initial photos, but it was more subtle than the camera would suggest. Definitely much, much less awe-inspiring than the total solar eclipse from earlier this year. Ah well, there’s always next time. If I understand correctly, we’re at the peak of a decade long-ish cycle for solar flare strength, so hopefully I can eek out a couple more auroras that dip down into Washington in the near future. And when the peak of the cycle comes back around in the distant future, I hope to be ready to see an even better one in Alaska, Iceland, or somewhere else of the sort (more impressive from friends’ testimonies compared to this one it seems).