The alert came down that the Northern Lights might be visible New Year's Eve, so I set up the 6D (14MM lens, 29-second exposures, 400 ISO) at 7 PM. The best images came at around 10 PM. I also did a star trails composite of the 710 images I got up until 1 AM on New Year's Day. It looked a bit cloudy then so I shut it down rather than resetting the intervalometer to run for another 3+ hours. I also did a second composite with the same images, excluding the first three hours to cut out the headlights and house lights, and that's the one shown here. Since it includes photos taken after midnight, I'm claiming it as the first image of 2025 and the Photo of the Day for January 1.

The Auroras that I experienced in the past three months are barely visible from my back yard. At best, I see a white glow and a little bit of shimmering. The images I've taken have typically been 30-second exposures, and enhanced in Photoshop. I decided to just go with it and pump up the color. So this is NOT what you see looking at the sky from my location, but it is what the camera sees.

For the longer version of the composite and another single image, see the slide show.

I also tried the evening of New Year's Day, but the clouds were too much and I got nothing in three hours starting at 10 PM.

Northern Lights

Three-hour composite