{"id":9978,"date":"2013-06-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/?p=9978"},"modified":"2014-02-01T16:02:39","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T00:02:39","slug":"june-9-2013-nebraska-northern-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/2013\/06\/09\/june-9-2013-nebraska-northern-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"June 9, 2013 Nebraska Northern Lights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"130609_4328_Sioux_NE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Following the El Reno, OK tornado of May 31, I had an entire week off from the tours to rest and recover.\u00a0 I needed it!\u00a0 Bob Conzemius led the Tour 5 group for the first week of June, and I relaxed at my sister’s place in Littleton, CO.<\/p>\n

By June 9th it was time for me to lead Tour 6!\u00a0 Rook and I met the guests at the motel near Denver AP and we hit the road.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the weather pattern was blah, and I had to find ways to kill time.\u00a0 I was drawn northward given the favorable upper flow forecast for the WY\/NE\/SD region in the days to come, and we found an abandoned house to photograph somewhere around Greeley.<\/p>\n

\"130609_4237_Weld_CO\"<\/a> \"130609_4238_Weld_CO\"<\/a> \"130609_4235_Weld_CO\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our next stop was farther north, at the official marker where Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado come together.\u00a0 It seemed like a good spot for a high-rise hotel and a go-cart track.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"130609_4242_Weld_CO\"<\/a> \"130609_4243_Weld_CO\"<\/a> \"130609_4244_Weld_CO\"<\/a> \"130609_4245_Weld_CO\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We drifted north to the Scottsbluff National Monument area and photographed another abandoned farmstead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"130609_4250_Scottsbluff_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4253_Scottsbluff_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4257_Scottsbluff_NE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And, finally, after checking into our motel and dinner in Scottsbluff, we elected to try some nighttime dark sky photography north of town.\u00a0 We stopped nearly 30 miles north of Scottsbluff, in the middle of nowhere in southern Sioux County, at the cut-across road with Hwy 71.\u00a0 There were some curious high clouds which resembled cirrus, but may have been noctilucent clouds.\u00a0 Long exposures of the Milky Way, towards the south, revealed the orange-colored glow surrounding Scottsbluff. \u00a0 The skies were dark and impressively star-filled!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"130609_4266_Sioux_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4269_Sioux_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4278_Sioux_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4280_Sioux_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4294_Sioux_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4306_Sioux_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4315_Sioux_NE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It didn’t get totally dark until about 10:30 p.m. MDT, and after about an hour of shooting we were ready to head back south for the night.\u00a0 I took one final look to the north with my camera and tripod, and noticed a bit of a strange whitish glow hugging the horizon.\u00a0 That’s weird, I thought!\u00a0 There is nothing in that direction — no towns, no distant cities, really — that would be causing that faint light.\u00a0 I thought that it might be someone’s bright headlights or something.\u00a0 Or, maybe it was just some remaining twilight, since we were kind of far to the north and it was close to the solstice.\u00a0 I settled on the twilight idea, but I had to take a long exposure to see if I was really seeing this faint glow or if I was hallucinating!<\/p>\n

Thirty seconds later, the image on the back of the camera popped up.\u00a0 Great Scott!\u00a0 The glow along the horizon was a yellow and red curtain —- it was the Northern Lights!\u00a0\u00a0 I was completely astounded and surprised, as I had never observed an aurora before!\u00a0 I yelled at the guests to take a look, and we gathered along the remote dirt road and peered to the north.\u00a0 The aurora was dim, for sure, but it was definitely visible to the naked eye.\u00a0 The long exposures at f2.8 with the 21mm lens brought it out easily.\u00a0 The aurora dimmed considerably shortly after I first saw it, but about five minutes later it perked up again, with some nice columnar structure.\u00a0 I was giddy!<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the aurora sputtered again.\u00a0 It was late and we had some long drives ahead of us, so we called it a night and headed back to the motel.\u00a0 I took about 25 long exposures of the aurora, and the best three are here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"130609_4337_Sioux_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4328_Sioux_NE\"<\/a> \"130609_4317_Sioux_NE\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Following the El Reno, OK tornado of May 31, I had an entire week off from the tours to rest and recover.\u00a0 I needed… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,28,21,56,14,59],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-54","7":"category-artsy","8":"category-astronomy","9":"category-nighttime-photography","10":"category-old-stuff","11":"category-rainbowsoptical-phenomena","12":"entry","13":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10000,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9978\/revisions\/10000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stormbruiser.com\/chase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}