Happy Friday! It was a good week for the aurora, bright enough to make shadows!

Here's the aurora at regular speed last night in Anchorage, AK. This is my favorite type of aurora, fast moving with pink/white tones at the bottom of green curtains. 😍

Here's 1 of 2500+ photos I took last night. My camera is looking south south east. The aurora way brighter and faster last night compared to what I saw the previous night. This is just a teaser, as I have a lot of aurora content that is crunching on my computer now.

While I was playing around videoing airplanes flying under the aurora last night, I had my other camera taking stills. Here's 1661 stills connected covering 55 actual minutes. The bright, fast moving streaks are the airplanes. I sped this up faster than normal because we all have swiping to do.

For the airplane + red aurora + big dipper fans. 😍

The last few years SNOW (snowflake) stock peaked in February. They’ve been on a tear lately and it is snowflake season. Time to buy???

This was 5 years ago today, an early start to snow sculptures that year.

Derby is reporting 8” (20cm) of fluffy joy this morning.

This photo became 10 years last night. I took it with my tripod in the stream. My past self clearly wanted a composition I couldn’t achieve on land. Also we don’t have that much snow now.

Derby is excited to bring the snow report this morning.

Derby is reporting a trace of snow today.

Moose on vacation.

For the garbage can fans. Near the end of this timelapse, the aurora got super bright overhead, lighting up the ground and Derby.

I just saw the aurora to the north-northeast in Anchorage. It's not fully dark yet. It's pretty lit in Yellowknife currently. Let's see if we get another pre-10pm burst.

Who's ready for more aurora? This is in normal speed (no timelapse) from 9/30 around 930pm in Anchorage.

Last night's aurora show just before 10pm, which took off before the clouds in. 😀 This is the 2nd pre-10pm burst this week.

Cell phone photo currently looking east south east.

There were several nice bursts last night. The first was around 930pm (what an early treat!). This is another bigger one about 125am. This timelapse covers about 5 minutes of time.

Derby wanted to watch the aurora tonight. Happy Garbage Eve to all that celebrate!

Fall auroras in Anchorage usually means aurora with clouds. Here's last night's show.

The hurricane center said this today about hurricane Narda in the east pacific. "A fortuitous 1329 UTC SAR RCM-1 NRCS image revealed a 15 nm symmetric eye beneath a small CDO..." My analysis. Narda has an outie belly button (circled).

While we wait for better conditions, here's another Sept aurora viewed from near Hope, AK with a bright moon. The water is draining out of Turnagain Arm because the moon said to. Like most Sept auroras here, clouds are usually photobombing. My bucket list still includes a bore tide with aurora.

While we wait for more auroras, here's an aurora show from Sep 2023. The clouds had lots of different places to be.

Are trains suppose to stop when crossing roads

Sockeye salmon circle of life. A deceased salmon rests on the river bottom to the left. On the right, a salmon egg (I believe) bounces around. This was the Kenai River on Saturday at the same spot I viewed them the end of last month. The water smell has ripened.

I took more photos of the outside from the inside.

Yesterday, 2 days before autumnal equinox.

For the star trail fans!

rate this landing a 0/10. The Jay did not remain in place long enough to call it a landing. This is a slow motion replay confirming the rating.

Here's another aurora timelapse from Sunday. There was a 10 min brighter period about 1110-1120pm that occurred in a weak spot in the clouds to the east.

Here's my first aurora timelapse of the 2025-2026 season! It was mostly more vivid on camera than to the eyeballs. Then the clouds came. Andromeda Galaxy can be seen above and to the right of center. The Pleiades can be seen rising low and center above the mountain.

It’s aurora season and even this pink cloud needs to skedaddle ASAP.

I rate this landing a 10/10. This seems like a new visitor and not the one that usually stops by.

Derby is upset with me this morning because the neighbor’s garbage can got a new fancy orange lid first. Happy garbage day to those who celebrate!

That bright linear feature across the sky this morning is interesting. Happy Tuesday!

Moose Moments.

With a sample size of 1 moose calf and 10 seconds, I have determined that a ~4 month old moose chews 1.7 times faster than its mom.

For the star trail fans.

For the readers of the fireweed. It lines up with the changing tree colors in the background.

The rose bush I put zero effort into is still doing well with flowers. I wonder how it would look if I cared more for it. It’s about 7 feet tall in width and height.

The milky way viewed from along the Resurrection River just outside of Seward. Skies are darker before the snow arrives. So, I enjoy this small window of time when it gets dark at night before the snow arrives. Sadly this is a very cloudy time of the year and opportunities are limited.

Last days of summer scenes, Kenai River Alaska.

Fri night I stood next to a small creek on the beach in Resurrection Bay and admired the stars as pink salmon flopped around. If there were bears nearby they left me alone. So many satellites!

Seems fishy.

Belugas after sunset.

Belugas! The one has some interesting black scrapes near its head and on its side. Anyone recognize this one? This video was shot at 120fps and slowed down to 1/3rd normal speed.

Beluga whale after sunset last night. There were at least 8 belugas in the pod I saw last evening and they were very active in the same location for over an hour, by far the most active I've ever seen. The location for those near Anchorage www.google.com/maps/@61.026...

Seems orange out (1026PM)

This is what storm chasing in Alaska from space looks like. 🤩 Parts of Anchorage are going to get wet.

I want to give this moose calf one of those clip on dragon fly bug repellants to see if it makes difference with how many are flying around it.