Lucy, Noir. Northern Lights in Montreal!

Capturing the Aurora Borealis in photographs is a dream of mine, and I always thought that I would have to travel somewhere other than my home town of Montreal, Quebec, Canada to see them. Now that I have family in Newfoundland, I thought that I got closer, since there are areas of Newfoundland where Northern Lights can occur. But on a weekend in May of 2024, the Northern Lights effectively came to me!

A geomagnetic storm with strength not seen since 2003, sky effects were visible in places where typically they wouldn’t be. Lucky me! Based on where I am located west of the city, the effects weren’t strong like they might be in more traditional areas, but no matter. I could see faint lines that stood out much better through imagery, but I could see them pulsing in and out of brightness, which made me feel like the earth was actually breathing. My desire to find more powerful Northern Lights has been renewed.

I took photos in different directions and at different times - first three around between 11pm and midnight and the others around 1am. The quality of light shifted both in the sky colour and in the colour of the light rays which reflected into the clouds.

I travelled to Fogo Island, Newfoundland in 2022, one of my bucket list locations. I’ve since heard that Fogo Island could be a spot to see Northern Lights, so I guess I simply have to go back! In the meantime, I will be grateful to have experienced this atmospheric anomaly literally in my backyard. Enjoy.

Noirly yours,

Lucy

Facing across the street where you see my neighbours house nestled through the trees. This is facing east, towards Montreal

Down the street facing west towards Dorion. I caught a plane in the 15 second exposure, and wondered if people in the plane could see the lights and how that looked to them.

The same view as the previous image, a few minutes after. The plane is gone but you can see how the aurora shimmered differently

This image was taken about 2 hours after the first set. I stayed up (even though I had an early morning!) and kept running out to check the sky! The quality of the light changed and the colours!

This was a view to the northwest of me, pointing towards Lake of 2 mountains and Vaudreuil. Quite a bit of activity in the sky, and the clouds had an orange tinge similar to sunset time, and this was 1am.

Similar view, with camera pointed up higher in the sky. I kept the one tree in there for a visual cue

Northern Lights are usually intensely colourful and I got curious to apply an Infrared technique to see how the scene would render without colour. Our eye is now drawn to the texture of the light and its directional effects.