I was supposed to be studying last night, but at 8pm I couldn’t resist checking the aurora forecast and it looked like there would be a chance of some activity. So I packed up and left – I mean give me a break, I had been sitting in front of the computer for 13 hours straight already!

My usual spot (even if it’s not very good) is at the skiing track. We have the luxury of electric light on this track but hardly anyone ever skis there at night. Except tonight – it was lit. Horror! I had no chance but the walk a bit further; there’s a deforestated spot on the other side with an open view north. The only foreground interest at this spot is a lonely birch with hanging branches but at least there wasn’t a lot of wind so I got away with it. The sky was almost clear but I was looking at these things in the horizon and couldn’t quite make up my mind what it was. High cloud? Auroral glow? It all looked grey to me, but I knew that a long exposure would extract some colour in the scene if anything existed. So I took a shot and looked at the LCD and sure enough, it was greenish! (Yes I know that AWB and camera LCD is hardly a reliable source of information, but a comparison to the snow told me that there’s a difference.)

But now I had another problem. The clouds. And they definitely were clouds because they were obscuring the stars, even the bright star of Vega which at that point was in the northern sky disappeared from sight. So I kept moving about, changing my composition around this lonely birch, and glancing towards east where I could see this fairly consistent formation of clouds. I mean east, gotta be clouds, right? And I turned my eyes to north again, waiting, waiting.

I had been standing there for an hour, still trying to figure out the difference between cloud and aurora. At least the sky was starting to clear a little bit, but it was cold and I couldn’t decide if I should stay or go. And just when I was getting closer to leaving than staying, I saw something in the horizon… that must be it! I’ll stay.

Miracles do happen. For a brief moment, I saw the aurora dance in the sky and I was so happy I nearly cried.

All the while this was going on, that persistent cloud formation in the east was getting brighter. At one point it looked like two gigantic spotlights pointed towards the sky and I was starting to have serious doubts. How can clouds get brighter at night? They can’t. The light show was already fading so I took a few quick steps, pointed the camera towards the lights and hoped for the best. I hit the bullseye with the birch and by the time I had I moved into a better position, the aurora had visibly faded, just one minute between the frames and the difference is clear. Nothing to see here folks, go home.

Waiting pays off. I may only have a few noisy frames with modest auroral activity to show for it, but I don’t regret trading my studies for those hours in the snow. Magical, as always.