One of my high priority goals this summer was to see the Aurora Borealis one more time while I was still in Alaska. Just when I was beginning to think my luck had run out, last week the northern lights graced the skies with their elegance more spectacularly than I ever could have hoped for!

I’m still learning how to find the best camera settings for photographing them, but I think I’m getting pretty close. The last image in the set above was featured on the US Department of the Interior’s social media, and received over 22,000 likes on Instagram! Nothing like a little validation for some encouragement.

This time, I also worked on trying to edit them to more lifelike colors, since the 10-second exposure of the camera picks up more light and color range than is visible to the human eye. The photo of the aurora over my cabin, and the last photo of the set have more true-to-life color, but the other two photos were too beautiful to edit down. 🙂 Regardless of the camera’s interpretation of the colors, the lights were as bright as I’ve ever seen them. My friend and I laid out in the deserted parking lot for over an hour watching as the bands of color danced above our heads.