Yesterday I posted about how to take photos of the Northern Lights, here are the results of my own process.
Last night was a busy night. My wife has a dressage show this weekend, so I was doing the bachelor dad thing for the start of the evening. Running one kid to gymnastics and then taking the other to hockey practice. Before these two events I packed up all the camera gear I thought I was going to need for the evening.
After hockey I grabbed a quick bite to eat and then transferred kid #2 to Natalie on her way home, and then I headed north. My goal was to try to get somewhere to see the northern lights with some water in the foreground.
Looking at dark sky maps I considered heading to Mark Twain Lake, but I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to find a decent spot and that I would be too late by the time I got there. Instead, I headed up 79 towards Clarksville MO.
On the way I looked up boat ramps and picked one in Clarksville. Upon arrival I decided there was too much extra light, so I continued one ramp north of Clarksville to a great little place (Silo Access Boat Ramp). When I pulled in, I realized it had some camping spots with a few folks in trailers and a car or two parked nearby.
It was dark, and I was able to park pretty close to the Mississippi River. I quickly got out of the car and setup to take photos for a couple of hours. This aurora event was unlike any previous one I’ve experienced (2 in the past 18 months). It was amazing. As my eyes adjusted to the dark sky the lights and colors really started to pop. To the point that I was getting distracted trying to get the cameras setup to just look and take it all in visually.
The photos here are some of the selected photos taken on my Canon R5 with a 15-35mm lens.
Here’s a timelapse of those and more photos all together:
