Clear skies after a week of clouds made me think one thing, aurora? Conflicting forecasts, however, shed some doubt onto whether or not the northern lights would actually show itself. One website was calling for a kp of 4 (active) while others were more pessimistic in their predictions. It was cold enough yesterday, -50 F in some places, to freeze the plumbing of our shower; so needless to say I wasn't very eager to freeze my own plumbing waiting outside for something to happen. I did have an excuse to go stargazing though. A near Earth asteroid, 2004 BL86, 1,000 feet in diameter passed within 745,000 miles of our planet (roughly 3x the distance of the moon). The next near earth asteroid isn't scheduled to arrive until 2027, so this one was worth a look. I set up my camera to try and capture its course through the night sky with a long exposure, but very quickly became distracted by a dazzling display of aurora that unexpectedly emerged from the north. I guess I'll have to wait until 2027. Actually, 2004 BL86 is in this shot somewhere above and to the left of Jupiter (the bright point of light), but you can't really see it.
Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, ISO-800 f/4 @ 8 sec
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