In May of 2024 a strong aurora was predicted. Family commitments kept me from traveling anywhere interesting, and they didn’t show from my backyard by about 10:30, so I went to bed. Apparently the aurora was waiting for that, because others told me it went bonkers between 11:00 and midnight. I woke up to find pretty much everyone else in the world with any kind of camera had crazy good pictures from the show that I missed.

Fortunately pundits were predicting that the show the next night was going to be amazing too, so I reached out to a friend, James, to see if he had any interest in running up to Trout Lake. Apparently he too was one of the four people in the Northwest that had missed the initial show, and was eager to give it a whirl.

I thought we’d probably have the place to ourselves, but when we arrived at Trout Lake just as the sun was about to set we found the parking lot full. I should point out that it only holds three cars, but it’s a moot point because as the night progressed we found ourselves with about forty new friends. (Fortunately when we arrived a local told us we should probably set up our tripods right away, so we were able to get lakeside spots.)

Blue hour was well under way when we began to see hints of the aurora. I’d never seen it before and didn’t know what to expect. James and I both began to take some test shots just to see how things were developing from the camera’s point of view. I was amazed that the noticeable, but faint, color in the sky really popped from the camera. The color grew over the next seven, or so, minutes, and then faded away again to just a trace. James and I settled in for the amazing show that was predicted later that night.

It’s good we took those initial photographs, because it never happened. Looking at updates on James’ phone, it was very strong, but north of us. The prediction of how likely it was to show for us kept falling and falling, so a little before one in the morning we headed home.