So the sun farted, for lack of a better term, and the intertubes were aflutter with the idea that people at lower latitudes could see the northern lights. The only real problem with the whole thing is that we’d have to stay up way past our bedtimes and maybe drive out of the city to see anything, but this is Portland and we usually have cloud cover but the night seemed clear and this is just one long run-on sentence as a prelude to the fact that we did it anyway.
Holy Cow!
I did not expect to ever see this in my life. I don’t travel, as a rule, and when I do travel I head south. I rarely go north. We did find a small road south of Scapoose along a quiet dark road along the river. I think it was the river. We knew there was water and Sauvie Island which I think sits completely in the Columbia. As we drove I thought the dim green haze through my side window was maybe a glow from the dashboard, and then I realized it was visible through the windshield, and then we realized we were looking at the actual Northern Lights.
We found a trailhead and a few people standing around, marveling at the sky. We hung out for about an hour. It was visibly by the naked eye but night mode on the Pixel 7 saw amazing things.
I found the images that had just a little bit of land worked better. We also compared pictures. It seemed like the iPhones caught more yellows in their night mode, where the Android phones didn’t.
It was also heartening to see some kids–still in their pajamas–wandering around looking up and maybe not knowing why, but hopefully they will remember they saw something very rare for people around here.
Would I travel to see them again? Probably.