Aurora season arrived with a bang this year. Normally we like to tell people that while it is possible to see the northern lights anytime of the year, we don’t see them as much during June and July. This is due to long daylight hours. By mid August it is getting dark earlier and is usually very dark by about 10 pm. This year was no different. On August 10, 11, and 12 we had a very big show in the sky as a solar storm from a couple days prior hit. The first night we didn’t see anything until around 3/4 am. But the following night the sky lit up with dancing colors and swirling green and silvery light around 10:30 pm. I took the following picture around 11:30 pm.

How do we know when to go outside and look? I subscribe to a service from Spaceweather.com that sends me a text message whenever the northern lights appear. And, for guests staying with us at Birch Forest Lodge they can ask to be alerted(or even woken up) if the northern lights come out!

We had a large group of people staying with us and they had a campfire on the beach that night and I took a picture of them with their campfire reflecting on the water.

In addition to taking pictures of the aurora, I also put my gopro on the dock and did a two hour timelapse. The second night of the solar storm I recorded a pretty cool show. You can see it here-

I had gone to bed by the time the big display of swirling red showed up. Fortunately my gopro captured it! Before I went to bed the green colors were swirling overhead so I laid down on the grass and took the following picture looking up at the tops of the trees. Here is the picture…