Early this morning, Neva and I headed out to see the Auroras Borealis or Northern Lights. We had to get out of the cloud cover and our first stop was up at Lake Osakis in Osakis, MN. The Aurora was pretty bright but it was just a bright green arc in the sky and was not doing much.
So while the glow was cool, it just was not cutting it for what we were looking for in the photography since it was just a green band in the sky. While I know most people that have never seen the Northern Lights before would say “what the heck are you talking about, that’s looks amazing”, well I have seen better and knew the setup could look a lot more impressive.
Lucky for us the clouds started to move in and ruin the show and we were forced to move out to the west and north. After a quick phone call to our friend Dirk in Wisconsin, he said that the only area of clear sky was up near Fergus Falls, MN. Hearing this news made me remember the location of the windmill that I found last fall and thought maybe I could pull of the shot that I have been trying to get for the last decade of a intense Aurora Borealis on a wide angle shot with a windmill in the foreground.
We found the location and as soon as we started to setup our camera gear, sky exploded. How do I define “The Sky Exploded”? The image below was shot using a very wide angle 10MM camera lens and the windmill was about 25 feet in front of me.
Also I didn’t just shoot photographs, I also setup the camera to do a time-lapse video of the event. Here is the video that has been all over CNN, The Weather Channel and ABC News this morning.
Well, I need sleep, I stopped over at the office to get blog updated before getting some much needed sleep. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get myself down to Nebraska to chase some tornadoes.