The Northern Lights

Adria has long wanted to see the Northern Lights. We found a website that predicts when the Northern Lights will be most active and where you will be able to see them. The forecast said that this weekend would have some active auroras that would be visible on the northern horizon in Anchorage. Thinking that there would be too much light pollution in the city, we went with some friends to met up with some other friends in Wasilla. Once in Wasilla we drove onto a frozen lake to watch. Unfortunately just as we were almost to the where we were going to watch the aurora from, I high centered the car in the snow and got it stuck.

Once the car got stuck, I realized what had happened so we got out of the car and started to remove the snow from under the car. While we were digging out the snow Adria said "Look!". I turned around fully expecting to see a moose as that is what Adria says whenever we see a moose standing off the side of the road, and I turned and looked and there were the Northern Lights in the northern sky.

I had a concept of what the Northern Lights were going to look like but part of me was surprised that that is actually what they looked like and that the photos of it in the mall weren't altered in any fashion. It was neat to be able to watch the aurora dance from one side of the sky and to see the greens with a hint of red that it produced.

Naturally we tried to take some pictures, but all of the pictures that my camera took ended up looking like a distant galaxy viewed through a telescope:

(If you look closely under the fuzzy green dot you can see a little green curve as well, although you may need to look at the full sized image to see it)

Below is a picture that more closely resembles what the Northern Lights really looked like when we saw them: