For the second time since May, people in the United States as far south as New Mexico were able to see the dazzling Northern Lights on Thursday evening.
The Northern Lights are the result of the interaction of the Earth’s magnetic field with charged particles released from the Sun. Normally it is a view reserved for those at higher latitudes.
The forecasts pointed to the possibility of a Northern Lights show similar to the one seen in early May this year.
How I captured images of the Northern Lights
Feeling exhausted from photographing the lights at locations in the Flint Hills last May, I chose a dilapidated farmhouse along Highway 4 in McPherson County that I have photographed previously. Forecasters said the best views, if they occurred, would occur shortly after twilight ends.
I operated two cameras to photograph the display. The first was a Canon R6 mirrorless camera with a 20mm lens. This camera was mounted on a fence post and was set to automatically take eight-second exposures with a one-second interval between exposures. That camera started shooting around 8pm and I left it alone for two hours. After 677 shots, I merged those frames into a time-lapse video.
The second camera was a Canon R3 with a 15-35mm lens. For these types of situations, a wide-angle lens is a necessity. Using a tripod, I worked from a fence and ditch along Highway 4 (the farm is on private property). My exposures ranged from six to ten seconds with an ISO setting of 1000 or 1250. Both lenses always had an aperture of 2.8. Every now and then I pointed a spotlight beam at the farm to make sure my image was still sharp.
In addition to the standard exposure, I created a few panoramas consisting of four to five vertical photos, which I later merged into one frame using Adobe Lightroom.
The camera will always see more than the eye can with a long exposure. Especially at night. But at its peak around 9 p.m., the lights were clearly visible to the naked eye.
