Aurora Borealis in Northern New Hampshire

We passed up the chance to view the solar eclipse in totality earlier this year, due to traffic and scheduling, but I happened to be in northern New Hampshire in May just in time for a very impressive display of aurora borealis/northern lights. I was staying at the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Cold River Camp in the eastern White Mountains, which offers a great view of the sky at night.

The evening began with an after-supper walk, serenaded by a wood thrush, and a nice sunset, with the sun highlighting the lower clouds in red against the darker clouds above. As it got darker, I heard a woodcock performing its courtship display in the field.

Sunset over Baldfaces, North Chatham, NH

The aurora borealis started before the sky was totally dark, maybe about 9:30pm. At first it just looked like a band of cirrus clouds going east to west across the sky, but they were flickering. Eventually it expanded to cover the whole sky, centering directly overhead. The sky looked like it was full of flames and curtains, all moving and fading in and out. Meanwhile a crescent moon was setting over the mountains to the west and spring peepers were calling from the ravine. By about 10:30 the display was fading and clouds were moving in.

The curious thing was that the aurora borealis appeared white or gray to us, but as we took pictures on our mobile phones, they revealed colors. In his article “How Cameras Reveal the Northern Lights’ True Colors,” Mike Taylor explains that at night human eyes use the rod cells, which are best for gathering faint light rather than observing colors, so we tend to see shades of white or gray, or at best faint colors. Camera sensors and long exposure times allow cameras to pick up more of the colors in the aurora borealis.

This is about how the aurora borealis looked to my eyes

This is how my mobile phone camera recorded the aurora borealis

The next morning some of us went for a bird walk at Basin Pond, where the still morning made for clear reflections in the pond. A moose foraged along the edge of the pond and two loons swam at the far end.

On the way home I stopped at Thompson Wildlife Sanctuary in Sandwich, where the rhodora was just coming into bloom and a northern waterthrush was singing.

Rhodora buds

Rhodora in bloom

Between the rhodora flowers and the brand new leaves on the trees, the colors are reminiscent of the purple and green in the aurora.