What we learned about the northern lights after seeing them twice in 3 weeks
Just after 6PM on Thursday, October 10, I sent this message to my mom:
An hour and a half later, we had this exchange:
As I stood under the pink sky sending those pictures, I wondered how we had gotten here. We were still in New England, now in western Maine, and we were seeing an aurora display usually reserved for much closer to the Artic Circle. After over a decade of futile attempts to see them, we were now experiencing our second aurora sky in just over 3 weeks, and both of these times, chasing wasn't even necessary. We saw them in Lancaster, NH a few minutes from our campground, and now, we were literally standing in our campsite, watching the lights over our home.
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Nicole Anderson
My "yeah" response doesn't exude the utmost enthusiasm, but I was definitely just playing it cool for the message. In real life, I was circling the campground obnoxiously yelling "AURORA ALERT!" to try and get our neighbors out of their rigs.
We started getting pings on our apps before sunset, but the timeline was showing our best chance of seeing them between 10 and 11pm. We decided to head to the campground's game room for a friendly ping pong match to let out some of our pent up energy from the day. Then we took the long way back to our site. As we made our way to the back of the campground loop, we no longer had the lights from the office. This time, we didn't need to wait for our eyes to adjust to the dark. The glow was unmistakable. We still had a bit of cloud cover, but it was no match for the vibrant pink hues. This was our first jaw-dropping aurora sighting, the type that takes away all ability to verbalize except for saying the words "holy crap!" over and over again. When we finally got our bearings, we knew we needed to let our neighbors know what was happening.
We had decided to venture over to Maine for two reasons. One, leaf peeping season was in full swing back in New Hampshire, and the campgrounds were not only crowded, but all the remaining sites were insanely expensive. Two, we hadn't yet checked Maine off our "States RVed" map yet, and this was the perfect time. We could save money, still be near the White Mountains, and get our 43rd state under our belts.
Don't expect to see a blog post about all the fun activities we did, because this was a "real life" week. We did work and chores. We ran errands. I had dinner with a colleague who lives nearby. We've done the Maine thing many times. We've been to Acadia National Park. We've traveled up and down the coast, seeing towns like Portland and Kennebunk. All places we would love to RV someday, but this wasn't the time.
So, the fact that the aurora borealis decided to gift us this wonderful show while we were here, was perfection. We had a huge grassy field across from our site, with clear views of the northern sky. Weekends got pretty crowded, but on weekdays like this one, the campground was pretty much just us and some longer-term campers.
We stayed at On the Saco Family Campground, emphasis on the word "family" because immediately after we arrived, we were welcomed as though we were attending a family reunion (which is ironic considering the last time we visited this area, we actually were attending a family reunion). The owner of the campground, Jason, is one of the most friendly and involved owners we've ever met. He spends his days taking care of the grounds and stopping by people's sites to chat. He and his family live in a house on-site, which really makes it feel like we're all camping in his yard. The energy must be contagious, because all our neighbors were exactly the same way. Whenever we'd leave the rig, someone would be passing by ready to say "hi" and have a chat. We even got invited to a campfire pizza night by a neighbor who had only spoken to us once!
This is precisely why, when the auroras started shining, we knew this experience needed to be shared. At the campground, the loop of campsites back up to a communal field. We could see the glow of a few fires across the field and figured we could start there. We went over to our neighbor's site and asked, "Are you seeing the northern lights?" Turns out, he hadn't looked up yet, and so he shot out of his chair with a "What?" and went out into the field. Happy expletives ensued. At the time, he was talking to another one of our neighbors, and between the two of them, word spread pretty quickly. They told Anthony to go over to Jason's house and knock on his door, something we would never feel comfortable doing because it's his home and he's off-duty. But here, and under these circumstances? Alright! Anthony went to the house while I went inside to grab my camera - yes, my actual mirrorless this time.
For the next hour, we congregated outside, watching excitedly at nature's performance above. We all walked in and out of each other's campsites without a care in the world, showing the photos we were getting and telling stories about our past aurora sightings, if we had seen them at all. Not all of us had, and that was extra special, getting to see the reactions of people who had waited their whole lives to have this moment. Jason told us that it was the best aurora display he's ever seen at the campground, and he kept thanking us that we came and got him because otherwise, he would have missed it.
That was the thing about this display. A few of us knew that the activity was high, but none of us were expecting much of anything so soon after sunset. We can read all the forecasts and see all the prediction charts, but at the end of the day, nature will do its own thing. We are just along for the ride.
The display was strong enough to easily be seen with the naked eye, and we even saw some distinct bands of light. Photos were able to capture the bands better, as well as all of the colors - even a little blue, which is very difficult to see unless the geomagnetic storm is exceptionally strong. We did not see any dancing ribbons of light, like you might see in timelapses from Iceland or Norway. Given how bright the display was, we had hopes, but it would have been a longshot. Even still, the fact that we could stand under the glow and soak it in without any equipment, is spectacular.
This solar storm was the second of the year that sent displays all the way down to the southern states. As you probably know, we missed the first one by the skin of our teeth. The biggest frustration about that was the fact that we chased them north for 2 hours, got to areas where people were seeing them, and still missed them. Then, adding insult to injury was the sheer FOMO after seeing the thousands and thousands of posts on social media from all over the country.
This time, we had posts to contribute, so we were happy about that. But whether or not we also see the auroras, something magical happens when everyone joins together under one literal big sky. Millions of people putting their individual worlds aside to stand in awe of nature. A reminder of how incredible our universe is, and how small we actually are in it.
We did notice something a little different this time, though. It must have been a "fool me twice, shame on me" mentality, because the cynics came out in droves. In May, everyone pretty much saw the photos for what they were, exclaimed at the beauty, and moved on. This time, many of the comments were questioning the authenticity of the photos, especially those taken by professional photographers. It called into question modern technology's impact on reality, and boy can that become a rabbit hole!
Let's for a second go back to my message thread with my mom. Her first reaction was "Is this real?" I talked to her on the phone later that night, and she remarked at how vivid the lights looked, but also the fact that she had to process that the lights were actually right over our campsite. Those photos I sent her were unedited. Or, perhaps I should put that in quotes: "Unedited." They were quick snaps I had taken with my phone and I hadn't done any post-processing on them, however, the phone automatically adjusts certain aspects to what it "thinks" will be the most realistic rendering. The night mode on my phone turns on automatically when I'm photographing in low light, and part of the process is that, after I shoot the image, the phone delays the final result for a few seconds. Obviously, during these few seconds, it's making enhancements. Otherwise, the final image would show a big black nothing, maybe with a few faint streaks of pink in the sky. This wouldn't be realistic either! What we saw with the naked eye that night was somewhere in the middle.
I took a video with no extra settings, which I think did the best job at capturing what we actually saw.
The problem with the cynics is that they honestly think everyone is trying to alter photos to make the auroras look crazier than they actually do, and because of this, people will be disappointed. However, isn't it a known fact that sometimes cameras will capture things better than we see with our own eyes? We see it with lots of nature photos, like sunrises and sunsets. We see it with other astrophotography. Personally, I think it's amazing that literally everyone has the ability to capture really good northern lights photos now, just with their cell phone. No one should be disappointed if they take a picture on their phone and end up capturing a green or pink celestial glow.
I read a post on the Northern Lights Alert Facebook page that summed it up nicely:
"Photography is really cool! It can give us some fairly visually objective images of the world. But photography isn't a screenshot of reality. Even "unedited" images will often be inaccurate to what we really saw - different cameras, lenses, camera settings (exposure time, ISO, aperture) all affect how the image appears. Phone cameras often process images as well, applying subtle changes and 'enhancements.' Heck, cameras aside, we all see things slightly differently as well. The only way to know how something like an aurora will look is to see it for yourself, and even then, you'll only know what it looks like for you!"
I understand that, in a world of AI photos inundating our socials, it's aggravating to constantly need to wonder what's real, what's realistic, and what's completely fake. I have a serious bone to pick with Boston Calendar for posting this photo, enticing people to go out and look for auroras that night. They never mentioned in the caption that the photo was a rendering, and it was completely inaccurate, all the way down to this camera angle being pointed southeast, in the opposite direction of the auroras. Plus, the obvious light pollution, city latitude, and everything else that would make this photo completely unrealistic. Some people in the comments caught on and called the post out. Boston Calendar's response? Admitting that it's a rendering but saying it's a "depiction" of how the northern lights "might look" that night, even going so far as to say that someone saw them in Cambridge and they "looked really similar to this." Newsflash: They didn't look anything like this.
It's a balancing act. If a photo is a rendering, it should be stated as such. If it's a real photo, we should all assume it's digitally enhanced, whether it's undergone further editing or not. Beyond this, let's all just enjoy seeing pretty things!
As for me, I took a couple of shots with my mirrorless camera, but I'd need a lot more practice to figure out the settings. The sightings are so new to me, I don't want to spend my night nose-deep in my camera, missing what's going on around me. I set my phone camera to a few different settings, but phones are so amazing these days, my night mode captures the lights with tons of intensity, and I don't need to wait for a 20-second shutter speed to get results. The quality is certainly nothing I could ever print and frame, and half the time I wasn't using a tripod so the foreground is blurry, but I love them for the experience they illustrate. Sometimes, that's enough.
That's one of the many things we've learned during our two aurora sightings. We take the photos to see the camera's perspective, but we're not letting the photography take over the whole experience. If we start seeing more lights in the future, maybe I'll spend more time perfecting my settings, but right now, I just want to soak it in.
We've also learned that, at least for us, chasing does us no good. After the May storm, we decided that we would rather see the northern lights when we're just in the right place at the right time. The best part about this is that, when we see them, we feel like they were meant for us.
We've determined that back in May, we did see the northern lights, but we don't count it as our first sighting because we couldn't determine in the moment if that's actually what we were seeing. In retrospect, it was. One of our problems, besides highway lights, clouds, and fatigue, was that we kept looking to the northern horizon, because that's what everyone says to do. If they're faint, they'll appear first as a green glow on the horizon. This is all true, but we've now learned that if the storm is strong enough to produce pink, people are more likely to see them looking up than looking at the horizon. This is especially true in places where there isn't a clear view of the horizon, like where we were in Maine. Even our clear shot of the north still had tall trees! We could see some glow coming through the patches of leaves, but the pink was far more obvious. With storms this strong, even the southern states were seeing pink. Looking up is the way to go.
This brings us to our next point, that "looking to the north" might be a good starting point, but the best activity isn't always due north. Both our sightings had some of the best views more toward the east and northeast.
This year, we are at solar maximum, aka the time when there is peak solar activity such as solar flares and mass coronal ejections. These are all fancy terms to indicate that the northern lights might be stronger. This has certainly been the case, but 11 years ago, during the last solar maximum, we chased the lights from Massachusetts to Maine and came up short. Now that we've finally caught the auroras, we've learned to factor in a lot more than just solar maximum. We use several apps and websites to help us predict our chances of seeing aurora activity. However, we take those predictions with a grain of salt, too. Lately, our best bet has been to let our apps do what they do best – alert us to the possibility – and then we look at social media to see if there are sightings in our area or at our latitude. This strategy has led to our two successes. Our chances of seeing auroral activity was only 2% when we saw them in Lancaster, and around 30% in Maine, but we knew our actual chances were higher. This strategy has also helped us avoid several fruitless chases because we don't solely rely on the predictions and probabilities. If we get an alert, we'll first check the weather and won't even bother if we're shrouded in clouds. If the skies are reasonably clear, we'll keep tabs on social media to see if sightings are being reported.
Speaking of cloud cover, we learned that the clearer the skies, the better, but they do not need to be completely clear for a good aurora display. We definitely had clouds during the night of this display, but since there were still patches of sky showing, we could see the lights easily. Even later in the night when more clouds rolled in, I still could see the green glow lower in the sky and little hints of pink further up, trying to shine through the clouds.
Tackling these learning curves put us in a great position to have a wonderful night of aurora viewing. We saw the first display at 7:30pm. Then it faded out, and so we went inside to relax, have some dinner, and feed the animals. We poked our heads out every 15 minutes or so, but we expected the next display to happen at the originally predicted time of 10-11pm. We were right. I took these just after 10pm:
After that, we called it a night. Our apps pinged at 2am and again at 2:45am, but something else we've learned is that we would rather not push our luck, especially if it would lead to sleep deprivation. If we hadn't seen any all night, we probably would have set alarms and checked after getting a few winks, but we already had a wonderful show that was more than satisfying.
We don't know if more aurora sightings are in the cards for us, but if New England has chosen this as its "welcome home" gift to us, we will absolutely take it! We can't believe that, after living in this region of the country for decades, it's taken RVing here for us to witness and experience so many new and epic things. It just goes to show that, no matter how familiar you are with a place, there is always more to see, do, and learn.