Aurora season

Here is an aurora shot from 1am last night. I was using Brian's Canon Rebel XTi for the first time ever, and did not focus the camera correctly, or know how to change the aperture, so this photo is sub-par for what the camera can handle! All of the rest of them came out pretty blurry..especially the nice and bright ones! Someday, I promise good aurora photos. :-)

My sister and brother in law show up in less than two weeks, and seeing the aurora is at the top of their list. I hope it can happen! We are getting spoiled here in Interior Alaska!

Whooooooosh!

I headed straight south to where I was at yesterday, a little farther out of town than I usually travel, but a nice little spot without too many cars zooming by. It didn't seem like the aurora was going to pick up and get bright like the last couple of nights, but after playing the patience game for about 10 minutes, it finally started getting cool. I set up the tripod, and the fancy camera I just borrowed from the UAF library today. The aurora just stretched east to west across the sky, dancing in green ribbons. Then, all of a sudden, the pinks came, and I may have been waving my arms into the air at it saying "yes! YES! go! GO!!!!", of which my roommate says that he wishes he had on video. With the borrowed camera, I had a tough time figuring out exactly what settings were and were not working for the aurora shots, so they are not perfect, and do absolutely no justice for what I actually saw underneath the northern sky, but it's my only way of sharing it with you who don't live here. The colors were much more saturated in real life, and the feeling of being under such a feature in the silence of the night is something that once you experience it, no one can take it away from you. And that is why I'm thankful to be here today.

The Lights.

My awesome job.

High today: 37 F
Low today: 17 F

A few photos from recent happenings.. been working a crapload lately to balance out the time I am about to take off but it is still easy to appreciate the little things...

I have been launching weather balloons for my research. I've gotten two out of three nights of launches out of my way and now do not need to stress out if I miss a clear night for a couple of weeks. Last spring was very tough trying to schedule anything because I would be basically "on call" for four months. The same is true now but it has all worked out very nicely. I am not concerned at all about scheduling trips on the weekends now because chances are we will get at least one more clear and calm night in November. This week's launches were fun because both nights I had some friends come down who wanted to see a wx balloon launch. Below is Adrienne launching one of my balloons.

Dani came down a couple of nights later with Bill and was having a blast.

The second night of launches the aurora decided to show its lovely face for me right outside the door. :-) I proceeded to call a bunch of people to let them know but was sad when the aurora quieted back down not even ten minutes later!!
...to something more like this...... but hey, let's face it.. once upon a time this green glow would have been a crazy deal to me!!
Where I launch my weather instruments at, the NPS is testing a bunch of stations that will be going out in the field. Someone was a little bit freaked out by them because they are all sitting there staring you in the face. Another professor in my department also set up his sodar which makes music! The music gets pretty obnoxious after a little while.... I was hearing it in my sleep one night which did not make me very happy.
Below is a radiosonde, the instrument which is launched with each weather balloon.. it measures temperature, pressure, and relative humidity, and then a bajillion other variables can be calculated through those measurements. Pretty fun toy, huh?!

Aurora!

Even Better!

High today: 15 F
Low today: -8 F

Another auroral night...

High today: 8 F

Low today: -5 F

Not an extremely bright aurora but still beautiful as always.. I promise one of these days I will get some really good pictures from a bright aurora.
It sure is nice having a north facing window, though. :)

The Sky Is Alive With Color

High today: 6
Low today: -12
Well I'll say the sky is alive. Having a 6am shift helps you to experience the full day from well before sunrise to well after. The mountains and sunrise were beautiful today.After two calls about the aurora being out I geared up to wander the woods and try to find a spot to take some pictures. There are so many trees at my new place that it was hard to get an open view but the aurora was absolutely spectacular. It was spread across the sky and apparently there were colors too.. but I didn't see the colors.The green curtain was just churning around and the silence at my new place was sooo nice.

Another perfect day...

Three nights in a row

High today: 54

Low today: 38

A Trip to the Outhouse

High today: 47

Low today: 41

...I went back in to get the camera ;)

Under Northern Skies

High today: 48
Low today: 40
Don't be fooled - the full moon is tricking the camera. It is not daylight, but those colors baby, they sure are alive!

My first aurora since April!

Until I finish my post from this weekend's excursion..

It's back!!! Check out the big dipper in the first three pictures!

High today: 21
Low today: -8

Something about Thursdays makes the aurora want to come out. As LeeAnn commented, maybe it's just working up a storm during the week and then BAM, it's Thiiiiiiiiirsty Thursday, and ready to party like a rock star. Ok, those weren't her exact words but something to that extent. Anyway, here it is, a bit more excited than last night! I would stay out all night driving around taking pictures but I'm on early shift tomorrow.. ahh shiftwork. Tomorrow night I bet it'll be out again. So stay tuned for a third aurora chase in a row. :-)

Settings just right

Well, now that I've figured out how to get decent shots of the aurora, all I need is a good aurora. Tonight was not the night. The aurora was out but it was fairly faint. These shots were taken with my Canon SD800 with the following settings: ISO 400, 13" shutter speed, I changed something under the exposure lighting by a nudge, a 2 sec. timer, and a tripod. I can't wait til I get a bright aurora to see what the Canon can do. :-) Enjoy!

I Gotta Say, Today Was a Good Day

High today: 38
Low today: 20

Well today started out like any ordinary Saturday, dragging myself out of bed at 10am trying not to waste the day. I really wanted to go somewhere or do something today but couldn't seem to find anyone willing to explore. I was ready to gear up for a long bike ride but got a hold of Josh and Deb who were ready for an excuse to not do their laundry. We headed up to Angel Rocks to go on a nice little hike - perfect place to be entertained by two geologists. It was an absolutely beautiful, warm day. The planning was all a bit last minute (which is always the best!) but we brought our swimsuits figuring we might want to go to the hot springs while we were all the way up there. We had dinner in this awesome small-town Alaska lodge then headed to the hot springs for a soak. As soon as we parked, we all looked up and there was the aurora!! It was only a pale green that started out as an arc. I had a funny feeling it would be a spectacular night for it and was absolutely thrilled to be at the hot springs when the lights were out. People come from all over the world to go to the springs in search of the aurora. We just so happened to go up there today. After we decided we had enough of the hot water, we changed and went outside to head back to the car and WHOOOOOOOSH - there went some crazy crazy lights across the sky. They were pulsing across the sky, dancing like a madman - green, pink, purple, white, orange. Everyone who worked at the hot springs was coming out to see the lights and "oo-ing" and "ahh-ing" over them. It was so much fun and spectacular. Everyone said they haven't seen them like that all winter. I was very very happy to be up there away from city lights when this all happened. The ENTIRE sky just lit up and went on for a long time. We eventually decided to head out but Josh was nice enough to offer to drive the 60 miles back home for me so I could watch the lights and not be focused on the road. It was amazing just watching the lights do their thing the entire way back to town.

Here's a few more pictures from the hike and hot springs - here's the North Fork Chena River We did an awful lot of random climbing on rocks. I'm not huge on the rock climbing thing but I like the not so steep ones.Wait.. season check! This is March...

This is July at the same spot. :-)Back to today.. keep in mind these pictures were taken with my point 'n shoot camera and not the fancy-schmancy one I had last weekend. So being that they came out, they can't do any justice for what was actually going on.Here's the above picture when I do an "auto adjust" in Macromedia Fireworks..
Ahhhhhhhh!