Went I went up to Isle Royale in September, I had dreams of seeing the aurora borealis lighting up the night sky. I had done my research and knew that they were most active around 10-11 p.m. and just before dawn in the morning. Around the equinoxes is also a time of high activity.
However, I failed to account for the fact that I would be hiking an average of 10 miles a day with a 30-pound pack and that with the lack of electric lights that I would be sound asleep by at those times. I think I may have seen them one early morning, having been woken up by bright flashes in the sky, but I’m not entirely sure.
I got a second chance earlier this week though, when some kind of solar storm kicked up the solar winds enough to knock the Northern Lights a bit further south than usual.
Serendipitous Solar Storm
First my mom mentioned it to me, at about 8 p.m., too late to get anywhere away from the light pollution of metro Detroit, and so I brushed it off. However, the next day a friend shared the same information for that evening and asked if anyone was game to go sky watching. I jumped on the opportunity and arranged to head out his way, and we agreed that Little Sable Point would be perfect; it’s pretty far from most major sources of light pollution, jutting out into Lake Michigan a bit and has an excellent view of the northern horizon.
We set up shop around 8 p.m. on the dunes, getting started just doing some astrophotography and my friend experimented with doing some light painting with the lighthouse there.
Around 10 p.m. I noticed that there was a pillar of faint light coming up off the horizon over the lake, and that there was a light fog all along the horizon. We both aimed our cameras, clicked the shutter and sure enough, the tell-tale green of the aurora borealis was there. I was so giddy as I began to notice the faint pillars appear and move across the horizon and then seeing what my camera captured.
I’ll stop trying to describe it and let my pictures and timelapse do the talking.
