March 30, 2017 Auroras
Mississippi River in Grand Rapids
After three consecutive nights of shooting auroras and facing a fourth, I decided I did not want to drive, so I was thinking I would not want to shoot at all. I would go for an evening walk instead and get a little exercise. Well, the auroras showed up anyway, and I saw a couple auroral columns on my walk, despite being in town. When I got home, the data revealed that solar wind conditions were still pretty good with speeds between 600 and 700 km/s.
I hopped on my bicycle and rode over to one of the Mississippi River locations that I preferred. There's a boat landing closer to home, but it looks over too many city lights to be an effective shooting location for most nights. A location a little farther west would allow me to shoot away from the most intense city lights.
The lights did not really impress that much, but I was able to watch a nice raft of ice float by, and some geese decided to get in the shot as well. I went home after about an hour of shooting.
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| A dim band of auroras over the open river with a raft of ice floating by. |
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| Here is the same dim band with a pair of Canada geese. |
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| A dim band of auroras over the Forest History Center trail. |