August opened under truly pristine conditions at Mason Lake on August 4th. Seeking out an escape from southern light domes, the skies here were ink-black right down to the spruce horizon, letting the summer Milky Way arch overhead in full, brilliant detail. Standing along the shoreline in total stillness, the only movement came from dozens of bats swooping low across the glassy water, snatching insects out of the night air while the camera tracked the galactic core reflecting faintly off the dark lake surface.
A week later on August 11th, space weather forecasters tracked multiple coronal mass ejections slamming into Earth’s magnetic field, triggering a severe G4 geomagnetic storm with a Kp index rocketing past 8. Exhausted after spending the entire grueling day in Orange County photographing an airshow, the urge to just crash into bed was overwhelming. But knowing the numbers on the monitors, I forced myself to pull my gear together and drive out to Vandenburgh Point on the Great Sacandaga. I was rewarded with the most vivid, jaw-dropping display of the summer: towering magenta light pillars erupting high into the sky, paired with a blazing neon-green ribbon along the horizon that illuminated the entire lake and shoreline docks in unreal color.
The geomagnetic storm lingered right into August 12th and 13th, delivering a softer, atmospheric purple wash that blanketed the northern horizon. My friends Tim and Rick came along to the lake for the shoot, setting up tripods side by side along the water’s edge. Watching the dials, adjusting manual settings, and seeing the looks on their faces when the back of their LCD screens revealed their very first captured aurora was every bit as rewarding as shooting the storm myself.
To close out the month, I headed deep into the Elk Lake Preserve. Without a doubt one of the prettiest, most pristine spots in the entire Adirondack Park, Elk Lake offers a level of darkness that feels increasingly rare. Surrounded by the towering silhouettes of the Dix and High Peaks ranges, the night skies here were pure velvet, providing an untamed wilderness canvas for the season’s final high-summer Milky Way passes and circumpolar star trails.
