These are my first attempts at photographing the Northern Lights. I expect every day to get better, if only the weather will cooperate!

These were taken at the Knik River north of Anchorage. I went out with Jody from Aurora Quest (alaskaphototreks.com).

I found that finding focus was my toughest task, that and changing batteries with frozen fingers and a frozen battery compartment release! I’m off to get hand warmers today…

The lights were very active at 5 out of 9 predicted on the Aurora scale. The forecast is available here:  gi.alaska.edu.  A higher number means increased activity as far as a wider belt, so visible higher in the sky in Anchorage versus being more on the horizon. We saw so much crazy activity directly overhead that we couldn’t even begin to phot0graph, just stared sort of awestruck.  Maybe my jaw would have dropped but it was too cold to keep my mouth open!

Hopefully my images will improve as I learn more over the next two weeks… stay tuned!