northern lights

[bottom-dragger]

the lovely mrs b-d has a late night radio show on thursdays and doesn't get home til after midnight, she is my northern light gage.

 

they were out last night. not national geographic quality, but a couple of dancing curtains before they disappeared.

[renalrn]

the lovely mrs b-d has a late night radio show on thursdays and doesn't get home til after midnight, she is my northern light gage.

 

they were out last night. not national geographic quality, but a couple of dancing curtains before they disappeared.

I've read and enjoyed many of your posts before, once again...color me jealous.Too cool.

Enjoy them!

[PennyAgain]

Fantastic! You deserve them!

[Beach4me]

I love this post, bottom-dragger! I'm sooo glad to hear that you've seen the NL already this year even though it's supposed to be a "down" year.

 

I know that in nature anything can - and does - happen at any time but is there a trend to the time (hours) that the NL activity seems to be most likely in the Fall? (I'll be the one not sleeping so I can keep my eye out for them next year. :))

 

And just so you know, I'll be asking you for a report of NL activity come next early September (2010)...just preparing for my trip later in the month.

[slabeaume]

We saw them in 2007 the night we left Skagway on a cruise. They were so amazing! They didn't last long, only about 15-20 minutes, and didn't start until about 1am---is that pretty typical for northern lights?

[PennyAgain]

For Northern Lights to show it needs to be black dark. I've woken up to them in the night at Denali and also out in the Chugach. I've seen them when driving late at night in areas without electric lights.

 

If you don't look, you won't see them! So many people visit Alaska and sleep through them.

 

Good luck!

[bottom-dragger]

i had a woman on my field crew that would drink herb tea just before going to bed so that she would have to get up in the middle of the night......

 

this time of year you need a really dark night (a very narrow window now) and far away from other sources of light; deck lights, lights streaming out from windows, even a full moon.

 

oh, and it needs to be a clear night.

 

good luck. they are magic.

[emerald772]

That is a great idea. I'll be heading to Alaska for the first time at the end of the month (Aug 29-Sept 5) on a cruise out of Vancouver; do I have any chance of seeing them? I have never been on a cruise so I'm not sure if there are areas without background light that would bleed into my view. It's a Royal Caribbean ship.

 

Thanks so much for any more tips!

[PennyAgain]

You will have to be creative and really snoop around your ship to find a dark enough viewing spot. Usually the area in front of and under the bridge is as dark as you will find. That said, you might have some luck elsewhere. Talk to some of the officers and find out what they advise.

 

The Northern Lights are usually to the North, northwest and northeast with northeast being the best, at least from what I've seen over the decades.

 

Watch for all colors including red and green. You need a vey dark, clear night.

 

Good luck!

[slabeaume]

I was on a Royal Caribbean cruise when I saw them. Didn't have to worry too much about lights on the ship!---we were just about the only people wandering around the ship at 1am! It was very eerie wandering around a dark empty ship! I had asked some crew members the next day if they often see them out of Skagway and they didn't even know what the northern lights were! It was a clear night (night of a total lunar elipse) and the northern lights were off to the northeast a fair distance away, but still quite amazing. They just didn't last long enough!

[PennyAgain]

I love that photo! Wow! Genius!

[emerald772]

Thanks for posting that photo Sue. How sad the crew didn't know what you were talking about. I'll have to check and hope there's a new moon at least on one of my nights.

[emerald772]

Wouldn't it be my luck, it will be heading into a full moon the week I'm there.

[CruisinCrow]

That picture is awesome! What time of year did you see it?

[slabeaume]

That picture is awesome! What time of year did you see it?

 

It was the last week of August in 2007.