Denise was at her mom’s in Chase City when there was solar activity strong enough to make it possible to see the Northern Lights as far south as Virginia and North Carolina. She was able to clearly see a red glow in the sky one night while I was at home (I didn’t see any trace of an aurora in Raleigh). I went up to Chase City the next day to rake leaves and spent the night. The chances of seeing an aurora on the second night were pretty low, but I took my camera and tripod along with me, knowing the sky is so dark on the Chase City farm and if anything could be seen, that would be the best place to see it.
My Aurora app was showing that the strength of the aurora was much lower than the previous night, but it was forecasted to get stronger. After dinner, I set up my camera on the deck above the garage, facing the northern sky. I might have been able to see a red glow if I squinted my eyes. I figured that if I used a slow shutter speed, the camera might be able to gather enough light to show up on the sensor. I took a 6-second test exposure with a high ISO. Sure enough, there was some red in the sky. After some testing, I set up the camera to take a series of 50-second exposures over the next hour to produce a star trail photo like I had taken of the house a few nights before Christmas in 2020 (which was in the 2023 calendar), but this time with an aurora in the sky. Perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime photo for me.