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January 28, 2014 Auroras

ANC to MSP Flight, Somewhere over Canada.

I needed to sleep a bit on my red-eye flight from Anchorage to Minneapolis-St. Paul in order to return to work the next day, but after an hour, I awoke and decided to look out the window. Sure enough, the auroras were out again! I attempted to shoot them and found out just how difficult it is to shoot auroras from an airplane. I hadn't brought a tripod on board, thinking it would be too bulky for a carry-on, so I had to find a way to hold the camera steadily against the window. This proved a bit fruitless because the plane also shakes enough to blur the shot. Also, blocking the light from the interior of the cabin proved to be a challenge. I'm not sure I missed any prize-winning shots through an airplane window anyway. It was nice to see them from a plane for perhaps the second time in my life (I vaguely remember seeing them on a flight to Europe sometime in the 1990s).

Nice Auroras
Airplane wing, dull green auroral oval, and some bright auroral columns just above the wing.
Nice Auroras
The auroral oval a little higher above the wing of the aircraft.

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