Oooh… Aurora!

Greetings fellow travellers.

What you see above is evidence that the local weather gods are capricious, but not entirely evil.

On Thursday night when bedtime had arrived, we escorted the dog outside and Anne — being smarter and better read than both Tinkerbelle and myself — suggested leaving the lights off so we could look for the aurora borealis. Well, the “we” in that sentence didn’t include Tinkerbelle, who really doesn’t care about such things.

I was skeptical. If you’ll recall, we’ve had a more than a few experiences with Vancouver and weather, and as a result we have formed a couple of basic rules to properly set expectations:

• Don’t bother asking if it’s raining. Instead ask how hard it happens to be raining right now.
• If an interesting astronomical event is happening, it will be overcast. Or pouring. Under no circumstances will there be clear skies.

But Anne’s suggestion wasn’t a surprise. I’d seen something about the possibility of aurorae in the news earlier in the day, but I hadn’t read anything definitive, and whatever source I found linked me to websites that didn’t seem to be showing relevant data. Combine that with a lot going on and I decided that it didn’t matter. It would — no doubt — be cloudy anyway. This is Vancouver, after all.

And as if the world wanted to support my beliefs, when I stepped outside and looked up what I saw were hazy, thin clouds and our usual smattering of stars, so unlike our Californian sky. It was not clear seeing, and obviously we weren't going to see anything interesting this even…

Wait…

Are those clouds… moving?

And indeed they were shifting. It took a while to realize that those faint, fuzzy patches had a slight greenish tinge to them, and they shifted about slowly, with their patterns changing over a period of a minute or two.

And occasionally they pulsed. Over perhaps half a second a wave would wash through them across the sky, causing them to brighten briefly. Then another.

We watched for some time. The dog concluded we were nuts. Again.

The best viewing was straight up, with no obvious aurora to the north or south, at least as far as we could tell. (East and west are pretty much impossible to see given the trees and houses that surround us.)

I’ve seen many photos of the northern lights, and I’ve read that the camera can exaggerate the visuals of such events. Indeed, the photo above (taken with a Pixel 8 Pro in night sight mode and with no other processing of any kind) is clearer, sharper, and a bit greener than what I saw with my own eyes. But it isn’t too far off. I’d say that it was hazier with the naked eye, if that makes any sense.

This was the first time we’d seen an aurora, and it was amazing. It also answered a few questions I’ve had.

In addition to the photos I have seen (and now taken), I’ve watched more than a few videos of aurorae as well. But nothing I’ve seen clearly explained the rate at which they change. Such videos typically avoid showing people and their activities, and as a result I have never known if the flickering greens and pinks happens over seconds, minutes or hours. The videos might have been sped up for all I could tell.

Now I know. The shimmering movement is visible in real time. You can simply stand and watch the patterns change above you.

It was a lovely experience, but eventually our necks were stiff and we were cold. In addition, the sandman was calling so we went back inside and off to bed.

Anne says that tonight there is an even better chance of seeing more aurorae than we had last night, so we’ll have another look.

That’s enough for this week. Thanks for reading, take care, and don’t forget to look up occasionally!