On Monday, May 13th, I headed off to one of the RASC Saskatoon Centre’s monthly meetings just as I do every month. There had been talk about a likely CME (coronal mass ejection) – a type of solar activity that often leads to auroras – but as so often happens in the universe, the Sun let out it’s massive puff of energized material at us earlier than predicted. The prospect of seeing the Northern Lights is always exciting but my attention so turned to the cool talks we had that evening.

A tradition of our club is the after-meeting meeting at Alexander’s Restaurant across from the university. It’s a chance to drink, socialize, and discuss astronomy in a more laid back environment. I’m, so glad I went and stayed until the end because by the time I got home, the aurora were almost right over my house. At first, I wasn’t sure what it was. It looked like a strip of clouds but clouds at night don’t usually look so perfect. I ran into the house, quickly grabbed my camera, and ran back outside. Here’s a few of the pictures I got.

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One of the things I need to practice with my photography is remembering to check all settings before shooting. In hindsight, changing my ISO setting probably would have been smart. I’m also learning that my battery drains faster than the camera claims it does so charging the battery more often is important. I was lucky to get in a few shots before it died on me but I don’t want that to happen next time!

I currently shoot in both RAW and JPEG format but I was never able to figure out how to edit RAW files without buying stupidly expensive software I found some freeware called Raw Therapee but it’s a super steep learning curve and I couldn’t be bothered. For the auroras though, I felt it was the best option so I fought with it and the above images are the end result. Yes, I need to learn the software more but I’m relatively happy with my first results. I hope you are too!