I’ve seen the aurora borealis several times since moving to Fairbanks, but nothing like this.

I routinely check the UAF Aurora Forecast at night, and right around midnight as February 29th, 2008 rolled over into March, the forecast hit a level I haven’t seen it at before: HEAVY+. I looked out my one tiny north-facing window and saw this nice green arc across the sky, despite the glow of the city lights in Fairbanks.

As the display got more intense, I went out on my driveway to watch. In the past I had seen only sluggish aurora, pretty arcs slipping across the sky faster than clouds but slower than much of anything else. I thought the rapidly shifting northern lights on TV was produced with time-lapse photography, and the real thing must be less impressive. I was wrong.

This night the lights were all across the sky, not just in the north, and were most vivid right overhead. They shifted in waves more like rippling water than sluggish clouds. They moved so fast, in fact, that my long exposures blurred out much of the detail. Next time I’ve got some new things to try with the camera.

Since that night I’ve been checking the aurora forecast a little bit obsessively.