Sepltember 3, 2023 Auroras
Lake Vermilion, Minnesota
Solar wind conditions were looking good for us to see auroras. We were on Lake Vermilion in St. Louis County for the weekend, and the skies had been mostly sunny all day, but clouds moved in at sunset. I pointed a camera toward the last sliver of clearing along the horizon and caught some aurora through that clearing, but there wasn't a decent display for everyone to see. Later, I got up around 2:00 or 3:00 AM and took some more photographs after the skies had cleared. There were some remnant auroras, but the moon had come up, and it washed the auroras out quite a bit. I stayed out about an hour and kept shooting, hoping things would brighten up again, but they did not. It was a very warm night for northeastern Minnesota, and I was wearing only shorts-- no shirt on. This is probably the least clothing I've had on while shooting auroras. It was at least 100 degrees warmer than my coldest episode of aurora shooting on Lake Vermilion. That occurred in 2014 when the temperature was about -25 degrees.
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| A small sliver of auroas under the clouds just after sunset. |
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| Auroras in the early morning before twilight, washed out by the nearly full moon. |
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