UP Dreams: An Affair

I fell in love tonight.

With Aurora

I'd heard about her.

I knew she was beautiful, but so elusive.

I've been looking for her.

And this morning, she found ME.

I woke up at 1:30 and looked out my window. And there she was.

A few days ago, I really didn't know what the Aurora Borealis looks like to the naked eye. We all see those beautiful, colorful waves of COLOR in the videos and photos people are able to shoot of Aurora. What I didn't realize is that a human's rods, or cones, I forget which one, don't work very well for color at night. Your camera, if it's a smarter one that MINE, can capture the colors more than your naked eye.

What I saw tonight was this:

When I look to the north, normally, since there are no towns or cities directly north of me, it's usually just a starry sky. Tonight, it looked like there was a huge city of lights, just hidden over the hill. It started with a huge glow covering the whole of the north. I tried to wake Bob up, but he is less than impressed by the fact that Aurora is not a Neon Princess like they show her on TV. So I watched her for a while, and then invited Jordan (night owl) to come and watch. I found out he has a slow shutter speed app on his iPhone, and he was able to capture this:

What was amazing is that I had always heard that you had to get far away from every light source (like the big street light right in front of my neighbor's house, and a second one right across the road) or else you might not see the Aurora. Surprise. I could see it with my naked, near-sighted-contacts-in-the-case-for-the-night eyes. It was bright. And I was thrilled to see the green show up in Jordan's picture.

After that, I tried to go to bed. I really did. But, I kept having to check one more time.

Finally, 3:00 AM, I looked and

Aurora. was. DANCING!

Long ripples from the horizon to the top of the Big Dipper and sometimes higher. Flashes like lightning. And pillars of light like hidden spotlights over the hill, shining up into the sky for miles and miles!

Okay.

If you are a Yooper, or a random reader who somehow found your way to this blog from Norway or Reykjavik, you may be stifling a little yawn listening to me go on and on about something you see out your back door every night or so.

But if you haven't seen what I am talking about,

Get in your car.

Point it north.

Drive until you almost hit Lake Superior or so.

I dragged a bleary-eyed, but otherwise perfect husband out of bed to see what I saw.

He tottered right back off to bed, without REALLY seeing what I saw.

And Aurora kept dancing.

So I had no choice.

I got dressed.

Went outside.

Scared a deer, who was also watching Aurora.

And danced with her.

Actually, I stood, shivering, on the back patio, in awe.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

In the midst of all the dancing, right in the middle of all the lights, there was a fireball from the Taurid meteor shower that is currently the OTHER thing to be watching in the night sky these days.

It made me laugh. And then I clapped for God.

And the dance continued.

Finally, when she showed no sign of stopping, I came inside and tried to download a program onto my phone that would allow me to capture SOMETHING. The only one I found so far (my only consultant and resident iPhone expert was sleeping) was able to show me colors, but also lots of NOISE in my shots.