Photographing the Perseid Meteor Shower from Michigan’s Keweenaw Dark Sky Park

The Perseid Meteor shower peaked Saturday night as the Earth passes through the dust left by the Swift-Tuttle comet. I think I saw more shooting stars, sitting out for the few hours that I did, than the total I have seen for the past decade.

The five shooting stars in this image are from a composite of three 15-second exposures (though the three meteorites on the right hand side were all from the same individual picture).

Also in this picture is an example of “airglow” a phenomenon similar to the Aurora but less intense. Airglow is caused by the steady stream of radiation from the sun and while it is not typically visible to the unaided eye, it shows up in long exposure photos.

Special thanks to the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, the Keweenaw Dark Sky Park, and Chris Guibert for hosting and organizing a Perseid Meteor Shower Party. There were about 20 Dark Sky enthusiasts and other photographers taking in the meteorite show and hanging out under the stars. It was a lot of fun.

Abstract Butterfly - Brought to you by the Sun

During the last Aurora event on March 23, 2023, I saw a number of pictures of the intense Aurora from that night which were similar to this picture - a straight up shot at the sky with no foreground elements and no way to predict or manage what the picture would show - other than the exposure settings in camera and the development of the image in Lightroom. For the most part the people who did that simply got what was gifted to them. I thought it was simply beautiful. It looked like a Phoenix rising in the sky…and I simply pondered that image (one in particular from a friend of mine who takes phenomenal night sky pictures) for days.

I had never before considered taking a picture of the northern lights like that because most photos of the night sky that are just of the night sky are often not very intriguing to me. They lack a sense of place and often just look like a piece of perforated black construction with a light set behind it. However, after seeing that one picture created by my friend - I decided that I would not ever let another intense aurora storm pass without trying that style of picture.

This time the Aurora didn’t have as many color variations mixed in - but I tried the technique nonetheless. I was pleasantly surprised. To me this one looks like an abstract painting of a butterfly. What do you imagine it looks like?

Northern Lights Spectators

Last night’s (23 April 2023) Aurora borealis was so bright you could still see it when looking straight toward the moon. The brightest Northern Lights were actually behind me during this shot. This shot was taken at the ruins located at Freda.

I have wanted to get a shot of this circular pool with the sky’s reflection in it for a very long time. While I like this picture, I wish I could have had it a little bit wider and at. a slightly different angle.

I also like that this picture shows the larger number of people that were there watching the northern lights. I am not one for large crowds and most people who want to see the northern lights feel they need flashlights to get to the locations good for seeing them - so, I tend to get a little frustrated as people move through my shots using their lights and generally being loud. I just try to remind myself that everyone enjoys these phenomena in their own way and while their way might just be different mine, they are still having an awesome experience that most people in the world don’t get.

Light Ripples

After a weekend of cloudy skies for the first Upper Peninsula Dark Sky Festival, the universe still taunted us with an amazing Aurora display that was mostly concealed behind a thick layer of clouds. However, that cloud bank stopped about 15 miles (by road…not direct line) from my house. So, we ventured further south to catch the lights of the north (as did about a hundred other people, too - evidenced by the line of lights coming down the bluff in the picture).

One of the things that I love about the Keweenaw is the interesting way nature mixes with remnants of human industrial history. This particular location is the ruins of an old copper mill. It has everything you would expect of an abandoned industrial complex - concrete, rust, broken glass, and graffiti. Juxtaposing all that with a mesmerizing giant solar storm in the atmosphere gives us an interesting perspective on the beauty and the hardship of the universe…and of the Keweenaw.

Light Switches

In all my years, even in my most ridiculous ideas of what my future life would be like, I never imagined that I would own a real, full-size lighthouse that, at one time (at a previous location) provided navigational safety on a waterway. (There’s a long story that goes with this lighthouse…but that is for another time.)

For now, I ponder what I have and what my responsibility with it should be. At its core, this lighthouse is the largest bit of “yard art” (that I know of) in the area. I, for one, don’t like “yard art“ - I prefer to call such signs and kitschy sculptures “junk.” That being said, I admit that I was intrigued…possibly enamored…with the presence of this lighthouse on the property when we were looking to buy.

However, what I can truly say I enjoy about our property is the number and variety of birds I see throughout the seasons. Which, consequently, leads me back to my thoughts about my responsibility in owning this lighthouse…which serves no navigation but has a continually-lit 10-watt LED.

During migration, birds use the stars and the moon for navigation. Research has shown that artificial lights disrupt bird migration. Recommendations from ornithologist are that all unnecessary artificial lights should be turned off during periods of migration. So, I worry that this thing I own, that serves no greater purpose than as a beautiful spot to sit and watch the lake and sunsets, is actually harmful to that which I truly enjoy. Granted, I have never found a dead bird at the base of this lighthouse. However, I know that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and it makes me wonder about the unseen impacts this lighthouse has during a very dangerous part of the lives of millions of birds - comprised of more than 250 species that migrate through here at night.

It really wouldn’t take much for me to install a switch. I think it’s time for that.

Southeast Northern Lights

After many years, I finally decided to take some pictures of the Eagle Harbor Lighthouse. I’ve seen tons of pictures of this lighthouse with the northern lights as its backdrop; so I’ve always chosen to go elsewhere.

When exploring for a place to go and photograph, I decided I would check out the lighthouse (mainly because most of the unique places from where I want to shoot the Aurora are fairly remote and I had only a short window of time before I needed to be home and in bed - I knew work was going to be busy the next day).

In any case, what a fortune to have been there. Most pics I’ve seen of this lighthouse with aurora are looking northward. But this northern lights display was so intense and expansive, I was able to get this view looking southeast.

What a night.

Snags in Winter Wetlands

I am fascinated by the importance and beauty of dead trees (aka: “snags”) in ecosystems. I’ve shared, in previous posts, why I consider them so important for ecosystems but I have never really shared why I find them so visually alluring. It might be because when I was a child, my family’s dining room had a picture that was drawn by the local art teacher which I, for some reason, found fascinating. It was a charcoal drawing on burlap of a collection of sparse conifers and snags in a bog - a very typical scene which can be found in many places across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I could look at it over and over again and see stories and history and biology. I see bogs with conifer trees pretty regularly whenever driving down just about any given highway in the U.P. - and every single one of them reminds me of that picture.

I don’t know if those landscapes are inherently beautiful or if they are just alluring to me because of the picture that hung in our dining room. In any case, the moment I drove past the location in this picture, I could see its potential. I have gone back to it time and again and it always presents a scene that is differently beautiful to me. Though, it never feels quite as full of life as it does when the night sky is dancing above it.

Northern Lights House

The Aurora display on Thursday night (23 March 2023) simply blew my mind (as I think it did for anyone who saw it firsthand).

I happened to be at the base of one of the nearby lighthouses when the first real big blast of auroral energy hit. What seemed like the aurora’s core was nearly straight up from where I was standing and I thought it looked like it was radiating from the beacon.

My mind is still processing what I saw that night.

[Side note on photography etiquette (because I know some people will wonder if I was possibly ruining the scene for other photographers when I took this pic –– I was not) –

Please don’t disregard other photographers at a location. The pictures we all want to take are not so valuable or unique to warrant alienating others in the photography community. Please don’t blatantly walk into a scene or start light painting the area.

When I entered the scene of this picture, there were two other photographers at the lighthouse taking pictures. I had previously chatted with them and discussed the potential shots at the location, given the conditions we were seeing. When I decided to go near the lighthouse, I made sure no other photographers had arrived and then I made sure that from everyone else’s perspective, they were not able to see my approach, where I ended up standing, nor the lights created by my camera.

It’s not hard to make sure to make sure the pictures others are taking won’t be affected. If it looks like getting in someone else’s way can’t be avoided, I either change my mind or I politely ask if what I want to do is OK with them.

Please do the same.]

The Source

Although this picture was taken at the end of the Aurora event the other night, I thought this looked like the Aurora was emerging from this single tree and expanding across the Lake Superior basin to blanket the sky.

I know that this looks heavily edited. However, it is not. I still don’t fully understand why the sky on the left side of the image is so blue when compared to the right side of the picture.

I had positioned the camera so that the moon was just out of frame (There’s a brighter spot in the upper left corner near where the moon is located). So I thought that the light bleed from the moon might have been the cause of the difference. However, I don’t think that explains why there doesn’t seem to be a gradient and instead seems that the separation for the color difference in the sky follows the Aurora.

Weird!

If anyone knows why this would happen, please let me know.

Red Sky at Night...

The aurora borealis on a moonlit night along Lake Superior. This red sky blew my mind…what a phenomenal evening to be taking pictures of the night sky. The thing that I found most interesting about this picture was the ice and snow formation at the base of the picture. It was extremely precarious getting into position - the ice was slippery and the contours of the Lake Superior shoreline made it difficult to not fall down and slide into the lake. Add the fact that I refuse to use a flashlight when doing night photography because even the dimmest “white light” flashlights kill human night vision. I do have a red flashlight, which works great for preserving night vision…but they can sometimes make it challenging to see certain shadows of ground contours.

Spirit Tree

Aurora borealis on a moonlit winter night along Lake Superior can provide some really interesting compositions. On moonless nights the sky can show bolder northern lights set in front of a jet black Universe. When the moon is out, as it was this evening, it can wash out those contrasts. The tradeoff, though, is that the moon lights up the landscape with the long exposures needed for Aurora photography and along with the textures and contours of the landscape, the snow sharply reflects the moonlight making it seem as though there are stars imbedded in the ground.

For this particular image, I was not the only person at the location. A young couple was sitting among a cluster of trees that I would have liked to have photographed. However, they were using flashlights inconsistently and did not shut of the LCD screens on their cameras. Both of those light sources would have been very distracting in any of the pictures I would have taken.

In any case, shortly after taking this photo, I glanced at the image on my camera and new it was a keeper. It wasn’t until I opened it up on my computer this morning, though that I saw how interestingly the northern lights mimic the form of the silhouetted white pine.

If you look closely you can make out most of Ursa Major (The Big Dipper) above and beyond the white pine.

Sci-Fi Photography Workshop

During our most recent Night Sky Photography Workshop, this one led by Nate Bett with me assisting, I was taking pics of the participants, along the shore of Lake Superior, with the Milky Way overhead during the practical application portion of the workshop. One of the participants decided to leave earlier than everyone else. When I saw that his path of turning his vehicle around was going to cast his headlight beams across every single one of the remaining participants, I quickly started a long exposure in hopes of capturing something interesting. I had no idea that the result would be so “sci-fi.”

The clouds in the sky, the headlight passing through the light Lake Superior fog that was starting to condense, the movement of the participants all came together to make something ethereal and completely beyond what I thought I would capture.

Keweenaw Dark Sky Park Inaugural Night Sky Photography Workshop

The inaugural Night Sky Photo Workshop at the newly designated Keweenaw Dark Sky Park was a success. Admittedly, it took some perseverance and patience but many hours after the class portion of the workshop concluded the sky finally cleared (mostly) and offered beautiful views of the Milky Way in one direction and the glow of the northern lights in the other. This was Brad’s first time getting his own pictures of the Aurora and he was very excited about it.

The Night Sky Photography Workshops take place each month at the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, on (or near) the date of the new moon. Check out the Lodge’s website and calendar of events for the next workshop. Call or email the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge’s Events and Education to get signed up.

Poster from the inaugural Night Sky Photography Workshop at the newly designated Keweenaw Dark Sky Park.