I caught this scene Friday night with Minnie up at Mormon Lake. Got lucky with the circumstances of heavy clouds stalled to the west.
I mentioned to Minnie in the early evening, “It might be possible to see the Aurora Borealis tonight.” Friday night’s activities were a choice between finding some chicken wings or the same old, same old. Minnie, being the adventurer she is, chose to head north with the camera gear.
It’s all kind of a blur from there as we fight traffic up the I-17. The construction project is taking the night off, but the need for extra lanes heading to Flagstaff is apparent. Minnie and I reminisce about the good ole’ days before the population influx in Arizona. She’s a native of Phoenix and I have lived here long enough to claim this as my home state now.
Lost in the Smoke
We find the turn-off for Lake Mary and see some LED highway warnings, “Caution! Prescribed Burn Ahead. Heavy Smoke”. The scene suddenly goes from a dark two-lane blacktop cutting through a tall pine forest to thick white smoke.
We slow down and pass an elk standing on the side of the road that suddenly appears from the white smoke. The large beast tries to orient itself after being smoked out from his grassy bed. Wandering down to the highway as an alien in a Toyota with bright lights blinds him. If I rolled down the window I could have pet the majestic elk cow as we drove past.
I provide the navigation to the best view of the Milky Way core. It’s almost perfectly South East in the night sky gently arcing north. Our galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy like the image below taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. I would show a picture of our galaxy, but the Hubble didn’t have a selfie stick long enough, so we’ll have to wait for it to exit our galaxy. Who knows if it will still be working by then.
Fun Fact!
The Hubble Telescope was launched with a major flaw distorting the pictures it took.
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
We continue through the smoke. Sometimes it looks like it’s about to clear then a swath of stale smokey air clouds the path again. The conversation intensifies as we lose sense of direction. I finally get a better view of the map and see a scenic outlook. The smoke and clouds clear as we approach our destination and we have our view of the Milky Way in the South East and the Aurora Borealis to the North.
Aurora Borealis
We set up the camera with a Nikon 35mm lens and take some test shots to get the settings right. I show Minnie how to take a panoramic with multiple panning shots, then lean back and watch her go to town.
We got lucky. The smoke and heavy clouds stall to the west of us encroaching on the Aurora. To the naked eye, the Milky Way and Aurora Borealis are just faint white wispy clouds in the night sky. Through the lens are some of the colors our eyes can’t see. What a wonderful night! A couple lovers enjoying a shared passion as the sun explodes, creating geomagnetic storms that could wipe out all of life as we know it. We are protected by an atmosphere that shields us as the energy is transformed into vibrant pink and red light waves of love.
