Over the past year, I’ve been lucky to capture the Aurora Borealis twice in my home state. It’s something I never really imagined would be possible at so low of a latitude, but with a few failed attempts and a bit of luck, it is possible to capture down here. However, although these two events made for some beautiful and rare photos, they lacked enough real strength to give the full experience of witnessing colorful pillars dancing across the sky with the naked eye. After several unsuccessful chases in the past few months, I began to doubt that it would be possible to truly experience the aurora in California, but this storm proved me wrong! CME after CME barreled restlessly at earth and the anticipation was high. Would it be a no-show? I know next to nothing about predicting the aurora, but when some knowledgeable friends started freaking out I decided it was worth risking. As luck would have it, I had a mountain bike race over the weekend north of the Bay Area and amongst dark skies. Unsure about composition or if the horizon would be blocked, I decided to bring the camera anyway and hope for the best.

Shortly after dark but before true night, I started picking up a faint red/purple glow on the Northern horizon with the occasional pillar. It was nothing spectacular, but I kept shooting and showed a few people what I was seeing. With no service out at the race venue, I wasn’t able to look at any data to see what was happening so I decided to wander around in hopes of a strong substorm.

Then, at roughly 11 PM, a massive substorm ramped up. Pillars expanded east and westward and rose higher and higher in the sky, shimmering and undulating constantly. The sky got brighter and brighter (to the camera and the naked eye), shifting by the second. I set my camera to continuous shutter and left my intervalometer shooting and walked a bit away from the camera to experience the show myself. Rising above rolling hills and massive oak trees, it was incredible to watch as sun-sent ions collided with the earth’s atmosphere and filled the heavens with an eerie glow. The majority of this sub-storm appeared to last for over an hour and although the pillars grew less prominent, the intensity of the color seemed to only grow stronger. Soon a red glow was clearly visible to the naked eye reaching high into the sky, which was a bit jarring when compared to my previous aurora experiences. There was something particularly strange about being able to see real color at night — it’s one of the human eyes’ biggest flaws and seeing a color as saturated and bright as red in the middle of the night felt bizarre.

*Pillars near the beginning of the sub-storm*

*A close up view of the bright pillars and vibrant colors*

As the storm grew more intense and the reds expanded across the sky, color was easily visible with the naked eye

After the main chaos of the sub-storm subsided, I raced around in the dark in search of a better composition. My options were quite limited as there were several houses with bright lights as well as the lights of campers arriving in the night, so I had to make do with the beautiful (but challenging to shoot) trees in the area. As far as settings are concerned, I took almost every image at roughly 6 seconds wide open at f/2.8 with the ISO varying between 3200 and 4000. The primary reason for such a short shutter speed was because of the movement of the pillars — doing anything longer than 8 seconds would start to blur out the rapid movement in the sky and make everything look like one big blob of color. This meant the shots were quite dark, but that turned out to be a lifesaver as the main sub-storm got so bright during my photo sequence that the highlights almost started clipping. Making my way up the road, I stopped to capture what I thought was one of the stronger compositions of the night. Although the aurora wasn’t as strong at this time, the way the hills and trees framed the sky made for a much more visually pleasing image.

*One of my favorite compositions of the night*

At this point I wasn’t sure I would be able to capture anything better than the intense period around 11, so I made my way back to camp. From there I continued shooting for a while, more out of curiosity as to what was happening in the sky than anything else. It was around this time that I noticed that the sky was very red, even though the actual aroura was fairly low on the horizon. I pointed my lens north for a while to watch what was happening, but when I looked at the images I thought I made a mistake. Due to the sheer redness of the sky throughout the frame, I thought that I had accidentally shifted my 14-24 mm lens to 24 mm instead of my desired 14, but upon inspecting the lens I realized it was as wide as possible! I tried tilting my camera higher into the sky, but everything was still a rich red color. Turning my camera 180 degrees, I was shocked to see that there was even more red in the SOUTHERN SKY! As the name implies, the Northern Lights emanate from the north magnetic pole (or the southern if you live below the equator). Due to how far south California is, I only ever expected to see the aurora far in the distance on the northern horizon. This really speaks to the immense magnitude of the event as it shows just how much real estate the aurora took up in the sky at 38 degrees North. Shifting my lens westward, I found yet another bizarre feature. A massive pillar of some sort was stretched toward the south, away from the majority of the light. It wasn’t visible to the naked eye but stayed in place on the camera for nearly an hour. This has to be some sort of other additional phenomena (maybe something like S.T.E.V.E.) but I have no answers for what it really was. Overwhelmed by the broad range of bizarre phenomena occurring around me, I turned to the east and yet again spotted something perplexing. While the aurora extended quite far to the northeast, there was also a massive glowing blob in the center of the red veil. This was clearly visible to my eye and looked almost like a rocket launch, but nothing like that seems to have occurred at the time. On the camera, it appeared as almost a hole in the aurora. Once again I have no idea what this phenomenon was, but it was quite prominent and visible for a long time.

*Looking west at the strange band in the sky*

*Looking east at the strange glow and the milky way*

Nearly 2 AM by this point, I decided to call it a night. Although I wish I had been in a better location to capture this amazing phenomenon with an epic foreground, I feel so grateful to have been able to experience this amazing event. Seeing actual color and real movement in the aurora with the naked eye in California is something I thought would be nearly impossible, and to have been able to not only witness it but also capture it with my camera was incredible. As the solar maximum reaches its peak in 2025, hopefully there will be more opportunities like this one to witness the beauty of the universe. Fine prints of these images (and many more) are available to purchase here. If an image you like is not in the print shop, feel free to contact me.

Capturing the Northern Lights in California