Aurora Borealis in KC

As many of you know we were recently able to see the aurora from the Kansas City area. Fortunately, I made it out to Smithville Lake, North of Kansas City, to check out the aurora with some of the folks from the club. I don't have a camera but I was able to get one share-worthy picture with my phone. It is a 3 second exposure with a Samsung Galaxy A24. Honestly, it's a lot better than expected considering what I paid for the phone.

Since this photo is a long exposure, it is not a representation of what the aurora actually looked like to the naked eye. We could see the red and purple color as well as the spike-like structure you see in the image. The only real difference is that it was less intense than shown. I was greatly impressed anyway. I hadn't been expecting much more than some green on the northern horizon. We got a much better show than that! At one point we could see Aurora to the south of us, which was a total surprise.

I've also inluded one of my current favorite art works which relates to the aurora. It was painted in 1865 by Frederic Edwin Church, you can find more info about the painting here

All in all, it was a wonderful experience and definitely makes me want to put an aurora trip on my bucket list.