Aurora Borealis in Colorado

In October 2024 the aurora borealis was visible in the night sky. I kept looking outside thinking I could see the lights but you needed a camera or phone to capture the colors.

My iPhone did a pretty good job and in the larger images you can see the stars, too. I had to change the settings on my phone because it wanted to throw a flash in the image. I think I blinded myself a little with that first image.

Throughout the night the colors changed. Earlier in the evening the colors were purple and green. After midnight they had a bright magenta hue.

There were lots of images online, some with cell phones, some with expensive lenses. I thought about trying with my Nikons but the batteries are as dead and my photojournalism career.

I’m lucky to live in the mountains with little light pollution. There’s still some here in Conifer and if you stand on the roof of my house you can see downtown Denver. I thought about getting images from around the Staunton State Park area because that’s a dark-sky area. But I was too lazy to get in my car and drive around. The driveway worked just fine.

This was a once in a lifetime event because I’ll never live north again.