The Northern Lights

One thing we have both looked forward to since our assignment to Alaska has been the opportunity to see the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. Now that we are losing about 7 minutes of light per day and it gets darker and darker I have been very anxious and check the sky every night. So far...nothing. Last weekend I happened to wake up at around 3am and look out. I saw what looked like a very faint whisp of cloud acrossed the sky. It wasn't bright at all and I thought that it must be some clouds reflecting the moonlight. Then I could see that it was slowly changing shape. I was super tired and didn't give it much longer. When I told SweetPea about the light she went to investigate, only to return seconds later and say that I was imagining things.

Last night at about 1am we were crawling into bed when I checked the sky again. This time I could clearly make out faint blue lights across the sky. I yelled for SweetPea and we spent the next part of an hour watching the light slowly form as a long line across the horizon (think of jet contrails on a bright blue day) then twist and turn and fade away. A couple times the lights would simply appear out of nothingness, just barely bright, and then fade out. It was pretty incredible looking and we both are anxious for the real displays that are supposed to come in deep winter when it is in the 0 to -50 temp range.