Northern Lights

Extreme solar activity led to one of the largest displays of aurora Borealis on Earth on May 10th, 2024. I started following meteorologist Todd Gross after watching his informative TikToks about the 2024 solar eclipse. He seemed to grow more excited leading up to Friday night, so I took his word about this being a unique event.

I regret not traveling to the path of totality for the 2024 solar eclipse - Especially since it would be a simple day trip for us. As the night drew near, I felt like I needed to at least attempt to see the northern lights. We have kids now. It's harder to just get up and go on a whim. Thankfully, I had a friend willing to drive out where there wasn't as much light pollution.

We chose to drive to the western side of Quabbin Reservoir. The light pollution map we found online said this was the closest place that would have the least amount of light pollution. It took us about an hour to drive there. There were some winding dark roads on the way there, but we were determined to see the aurora. However, we were met with a large blanket of clouds.

We spent about 10 minutes there trying to see if I could get the camera to show any glimpse of the aurora. All I got was some long exposures of the cars blinding us at 45mph. Defeated, we started the hour-long drive back home.

On the way back, I started seeing streaks in the sky. A few more miles down, I see more prominent streaks and no clouds! I pulled up a map and looked for a place to stop. We drove to Wachusett Reservoir to find a dazzling display. Even with the naked eye, you could make out the faint green streaks covering large portions of the sky. The photos I took with my camera covered only a segment of large green curtains that spanned the sky.

Taking long exposures uncovered even more colors, more vibrant purples and reds. It felt scary to see these solar particles affecting our earth's magnetic field. Right there in front of you at a scale you can't comprehend. By the time I arrived home, that same Sun was already rising. Even though we had a 2-hour long detour, the whole night was worth it. I'm glad so many other people were able to see it too. For a few hours, we all felt some magic. At least the ones that stayed up.