Random Thoughts in My Head

Sometimes you find the lady dancing and sometimes she hides behind clouds and snow. Good times chasing lady aurora, even if she was elusive tonight.

  

Someone asked why we went, since the forecast was for snow and extreme cold. Normally those two things are not supposed to happen together, but The ovation looked good and the KP forecast was positive.

We actually saw stars when we first got up there, but they played hide and seek for the entire time we were up there.
I’m not sure why the others went, but I consider it a good learning experience:
1 I learned where Skiland is!
2) I tested my striped face mask. Talking through it is tricky, but it works and today my face does not have evidence of cold burn.
3) I tested the hand warmers with the new inner liners with success!
4) I tested hand warmers in my boots. Not so much success, but it gave me some ideas and I’m going to try something else next time.
5) I learned the standard 50mm lens my Sony came with is not great at finding or focusing on stars so personally I’m content with the lack of aurora during this adventure. I’m excited for my new lens to get here!

Not sure the next time I’ll get out, but thanks to a sale at Sport Authority I’ve got new gear to protect my hands, face and feet. Just need a trip to Sams for a case of hand warmers and I’ll be ready to go!

Made arrangements to meet a couple of fellow aurora chasers out at Chena Lakes on a Saturday night when it was -21F.  After my last adventure of scaring myself when I went out there alone, I decided the company of strangers would be better than being out alone.  Also went to a new location, the second parking area of Chena Lakes. This turned out to be a great viewing spot too. The lights danced for us over and over and finally around 2:30am I was too tired to stay any longer so I decided to leave.

Since the other two people I had met were planning on staying to keep watching and taking photographers and headlights will make one loose their night vision I decided to try to move my car, without my headlights or even the running lights on, to the other side of the parking lot to let it warm up.  Turns out, even in an empty parking lot there are things that can be crashed into, snow berms are the worst of them when it’s -20 since they are frozen solid and hard.  I was not going fast, maybe 10-12mph when I very slowly and quite accidentally crashed my car into one of them and heard a massive CRUNCH.  My friends turned from where they were watching the lights to check on me: “I’m fine!” I yelled out to my new friends.  Little did I know how much I had broken my car.  I got home around 3am and crawled into bed, not even thinking any more about the damage to the car….

It was not until the next day where I realized just how badly the front of my vehicle was damaged.  The entire “under the bumper” plastic thing was cracked. I noticed it when I heard it dragging as I stopped at the Co-Op Market before heading to dance class.  For some reason I did not have duct tape in my car, but I found a set of old broken earphones that were in my car console and used that to tie the breaking plastic pieces back together.  A picture is below for your entertainment.

I have discovered in processing my pictures that my ISO was far too low.  Most were taken at ISO 1000 and though they looked good on my lcd screen on the camera that even with corrections via irfanview I’m not able to bring out the detail I would like.  I started with 107 images but I only ended up with about 20 that were good enough to post with some editing.

Also I’ve attached a couple of my favorites of the aurora from that night, the full album of them is here

Went chasing the light last night. Knew it would have to be an early night, but decided to drive out past Ester to the Parks Monument thinking that might be a good vantage point. It would have been, except for the clouds (first photo), so I didn’t even both getting out of my car.

Also, I’m having trouble figuring out how to get the f-stop (aperture) to set correctly. I sat in the car with the engine running for about 20 minutes watching for lights and trying to remember how to get to that setting on my camera. I’m excited for the workshop in two weeks that I’m taking on aurora photography since I feel like my progress is going backwards with regards to using my new camera. Those first shots were totally beginner luck, I’m sure!

Got home and after an hour went outside and notice faint lights from my house so geared up and ran to the yard. They aren’t magnificent shots, but at least I got a few with that rented lens. Also, I bought a remote to use and never even got it out. Silly me! It was so dang warm last night I didn’t really need it!

These are so bright.  I’m fairly sure my settings are all wrong since the f-stop just read F—- instead of an actual value.

Signs that you might be a little obsessed with the auroras: checking the KP and aurora forecast for tonight from work.

However it’s cloudy outside at nearly 4pm Alaska time, but who knows what the next eight to twelve hours will hold – perhaps the lights, perhaps some sleep. Only time will tell!