The Aurora Borealis

Dedicated photographers in New England have always technically had the chance to photograph the aurora borealis - usually a few times a year. However these forecasted storms are usually so weak that it's only rarely that we get to photograph much - let alone see it with our naked eyes. If we're lucky, some color is visible, perhaps with a few pillars on the northern horizon. But the images you see from the arctic circle with huge bands moving across the sky? Almost unheard of.

That changed on May 10-12, 2024, when a massive geomagnetic storm slammed into the earths atmosphere, displaying a dazzling aurora as far south as Georgia, USA.

Due to cloud forecasts and an attempt to get as far north as possible, I drove over seven hours to Moosehead Lake, Maine, where all of these images and videos were made.

This ended up being the strongest geomagnetic storm in decades, and provided us with sights normally reserved for rare occasions above the arctic circle.

Just 32 days after the total solar eclipse, we've started 2024 off right! And we were really lucky to be rewarded with an incredible sunrise as well - you'll see that at the bottom of the page.

My photo collection is now complete. There are a handful of images not displayed here, but viewable by heading to the print store. They are mostly similar versions of what is shown here.

I am working on a brief blog post about the evening, however I still need to finish my post about the eclipse... so stay tuned!

I highly recommend finding yourself an HDR-compatible screen to watch the timelapses below. OLED smartphones or TV's should work great, as will newer Macbooks, iPad Pros and a handful of PCs and other tablets. (If you're not using a phone or Apple device, you probably know whether your screen is HDR-compatible).

Stills from the Timelapse

Yes, they're similar, but the ephemeral dancing patterns are addictive. Which is the best? Who's to say. My opinion changes by the minute.

These images are noted with their 'scene' number. If you'd like to purchase prints, you can click through at the top, and use the scene number to guide you.

All images will be cleaned of satellite trails, and receive final adjustments prior to printing.

Scene 3

Scene 1

Sunset and Sunrise

It's entirely unreasonable to expect a great sunset and sunrise immediately before and after the best aurora show in decades. Yet that's exactly what happened. Just an hour or so prior to first seeing the aurora, we had a quite-decent sunset.

But the real magic was just an hour after the clouds blotted out the last glimpses of the aurora. I had a feeling based on the cloud pattern that it'd be worth sticking around for... and so it was!