The Night the Moon Crashed the Party

Vincent — The Aurora Guy, for those not initiated — had posted a cautiously optimistic note that night. The official aurora forecast had the KP in the upper 3s and low 4s, but he'd spotted some conditions that weren't necessarily being factored into the predictions. "Might be worth going out for," he said.

I checked the moon's rise and set and it was going to be down and dark all night! So out I went.

The lake was still as glass. The sky was dark and clear. A light, but colorful aurora rainbow had already landed along the horizon - steady and gorgeous, with the Milky Way arching overhead and settling in for the evening. I had my cameras set up, shooting back-to-back, capturing what I could of the show.

And then the colors became more bold and there was 'solar play' along the horizon. I was thinkin to myself, I could do this all night long.

Then something orange started coming up over the horizon.

Big. Round. Glowing. Growing.

My brain, in the exact order it happened, went:

Oh. The aliens are here. Oh shit. Russia has invaded. Meteor. A giant meteor is coming directly at me. This is how I die. …let me check my phone.

And of course it was the moon. A two-thirds moon.

I had misread the moonrise time.

I was out at the lake, alone, in the dark, briefly convinced I was witnessing an interstellar first contact or a nuclear event, and it was just the moon, showing up to the party I had definitely not invited her to.

I laughed at myself for a long time.

But here's the thing — the moon crashing the party actually made the whole night better, for a little while anyway. The thumbnails tell the story. In the first batch, it's just the Milky Way and the classic green aurora glow, doing their quiet thing. Then the moon shoulders her way in from the right, warm and orange, lighting up the water and adding a whole new color to the mix. By the end of the sequence, the sky has turned into this soft lavender-pink wash from the light of the moon. Three light sources — galaxy, aurora, moon — all in the same frame, all talking to each other.

That's the thing about parties, isn't it? The best ones aren't usually the ones you planned. They're the ones where somebody shows up unexpectedly and changes the whole energy of the room.

I love shooting north on nights like this. You get the aurora and you get the Milky Way posing beautifully in the same frame. Add an uninvited moon and you've got the whole celestial guest list in one shot.

Vincent was right. It was worth going out for.