October 10, 2024 was another great solar storm that caused Northern Lights to appear all across North America. Space weather forecasters issued a Severe G4 Geomagnetic Storm Watch which added to some excitement. I’ve never seen the aurora having slept through the last time this occurred, so I was glad to have another opportunity.

We first went to a nearby park where it was pretty dark and we thought we’d get some good photos. We were able to get some photos that were pretty good, but not like the one above. We thought we’d stop at one more local park on the way home, although our expectations were lower as we were closer to the city lights. But that must have been when the lights peaked.

For most of the evening, we could get photos with our cameras and phones, but we couldn’t really see much with the naked eye. But for a few minutes around when the above photo was taken you could clearly see the pillars of green light and the red haze in the sky. It was really amazing. It wasn’t like what you see in photos way up north, but being that I’ve never seen them before, it felt otherworldly.

I used my fastest lens which happens to be a 40mm f2 – not the best for landscape/sky photography, but I decided it would have to do. I also apparently have a good deal to learn about nighttime sky photography as a lot of my photos were blurry. I set the manual focus to infinity, but that may not have been the best choice. Some references advise photographers to focus on a point in the far distance and then leave the focus alone. I could have focused on the moon and then left the focus at that point.

But the photos that turned out captured the moment and the incredible colors. The above photo was processed in Luminar to straighten the horizon and remove a power line and a person’s arm from the lower left corner. No other adjustments made.

Nikon Z6ii, f2, 8sec, ISO320, lightly processed in Luminar NEO