Northern Lights In the North (Sort Of)

I had the chance to finally capture some Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) on April 5, 2010. I was out with my good friend Bob of Blackholes and Astrostuff and went just outside the city limits to catch them. They didn't last too long, so we had to work fast. For my first time photographing them, I was pleasantly surprised with the results. At first, I was skeptical about how the shots would turn out, because I was using my Nikon D90, which is notoriously bad for the level of noise it introduces into night shots. But, with a little tweaking using my software, I was able to get the shots looking half-decent.

Aurora's are basically the emission of photons in Earth's upper atmosphere. For a more detailed description, please click here. I can try to explain it but I'm not a science-type guy and therefore wouldn't do it justice. Also, in the title, I have sort of in brackets. The reason for that is because while we may be fairly north of some places that can see the Northern Lights, we are not far enough to see the amazing ones that are seen in the Arctic. They still look pretty awesome.

And a special thanks to Planetaryman (my Dad) for being my newest follower.

Enjoy the photos. And hopefully, Blogger won't butcher them too much this time.