File:Aurora over Mono Lake - 53787000434.jpg

English: The amazing auroras that blanketed the world on May 10 and 11 were caused by a powerful solar storm, one of the strongest in years! The sun unleashed a burst of charged particles that interacted with Earth's atmosphere, creating the colorful light show seen around the world. While I missed the big show on Friday, the next day I drove 6 hours to get as far north as I could before dark, and made it to Mono Lake.

I was excited about experiencing my first aurora, so I went for wide-angle to try to capture as much as possible. I couldn't really see much with my own eyes, which is partially cause I'm of a certain age and the old peepers don't work as well as they used to, but the camera picked up everything. I shot these at 6400 ISO and 30 second exposures, so there's a fair bit of noise, and I did adjust contrast and exposure to bring out the best image I could, but did not boost saturation, so this color is what the camera collected.

I am still dreaming of traveling to prime aurora locations for grand experiences, but I'm grateful to have seen this in my home state!