September 4, 2022 Auroras

Lake Vermilion, Cook, Minnesota.

There was a G2 watch out for the weekend, meaning there could be some pretty nice auroras if the timing of events worked in our favor. The source was a high speed stream of solar wind. The speeds were pretty fast (600-700 km/s), and the magnetic field vector in the solar wind pointed south (Bz was negative, mostly in the -5 to -8 range). Also, in September, auroras are more favorable given the same solar wind conditions. The skies were clear, and the moon set in the somewhat late evening. All conditions pointed to a possible strong aurora event.

We weren't disappointed. Auroras were present from sunset to sunrise. I was staying overnight at Lake Vermilion, so I brought my cameras along to take pictures. We sat around the campfire, and as it got dark, and all the normal people went to bed, I could see hints of auroras in the northern sky. As the sky continued to darken, I could see a definite band of green just above the trees, so I thought I better tell some others (who hadn't quite made it to bed), and we could watch. I had a camera set up by the campfire, and I let it run on timelapse. My sister suggested we go out to the south shore of the lake, where she knew people who would allow us to shoot at their dock.

The first green band viewed from the south side of the lake.

The first substorm begins with columns.

The green and reds expand.

The auroras revert quickly to a double band.

We stayed at a dock on the south shore as the first substorm of the evening developed. Tall columns of auroras shot up from the main auroral arc, reaching high in the sky (to about the North Star). This initial substorm did not last terribly long, and the auroras reverted back to their arc structure rather than going through the typical substorm cycle. I did not want to keep everyone at the dock just for my photography, so we headed back to the island where there was less of a view of the northern horizon, but there was enough of a view that photography could still be okay. The auroras helped with this part by building higher into the sky.

At first, they receded a bit toward the northern horizon. When we got back to the island, they looked slightly diminished from where they had started and were just barely above the treetops. Soon, though, the arc expanded southward again, and a second substorm developed. After this second substorm broke, they never went back to the stead arc form. The auroras moved and pulsated for the rest of the night.

My campsite camera recorded this while we were on the south shore. The moon was still up, illuminating the north shoreline.

The second substorm begins.

Pulsating auroras fill the sky.

I switched to the wider angle lens.

The auroras fill the sky.

The show continues.

This is one of my favorite shots. These auroras are pretty bright.

I shot until sometime after 3:00 AM. I was getting tired and considered setting a camera outside with an intervalometer, but I thought the others might get up and trip over it, so I shut everything down and brought the cameras inside my sleeping quarters. There was another nice substorm around 5:30, but I missed it. I had already gotten some pretty decent stuff.

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