northern lights (encore)
Originally posted December 31, 2007
It is somehow very satisfying to bundle up to go out into the cold, even though once you get one mitt on and tucked in, you can’t get the other one on properly. The mitts have to come off anyway to operate the camera, which has a metal casing, and let me tell you that is not pleasant to handle at 30 below (minus 20 Fahrenheit, in case you aren’t bilingual). I don’t dawdle, and try to only leave one hand exposed, and use a wrist strap so I don’t drop the camera when the hand become thick and stupid in the cold.
Cold clear nights are the best to see the northern lights and so I bundle up and head out. A couple of nights ago was the first time in three months that I saw an aurora. At first it was just a pale green band across the entire sky, which slowly shifted and dissolved and reformed. Then there was a breakaway formation like a horse’s tail that flipped off to one side. I was surprised how rapidly it could move. You can see it taking shape and moving across and it feels like you can glimpse the workings of the universe, that you can actually observe rays of energy coming in from the faraway heavens and interacting with our planet.
Of course I tried to get a picture but when it was spectacular it moved quickly and was gone before I could get the camera out from beneath all the layers. In any event, I think I would need a tripod to do a longer exposure. Perhaps I’ll just buy a postcard and take a picture of that, and say look, ain’t it pretty? In the meantime, here is the shadow of a tree cast by a streetlight onto the tire tread texture of an icy winter street.
