Elf's Shrine

Today's the day. Or rather, the night! Hopefully we managed to get the Aurora on our very first try! We booked the Aurora tour with the Aurora Chasers, and they will be picking us up at our hotel at 2215hrs. They sent an email a couple of days prior to confirm and inform us of the pickup time. Since we have the entire day free, we just pretty much lounged around and went out for food and some grocery shopping before going back to the hotel to get ready for the aurora trip.

So we got ready for the pickup and were downstairs just in good time to meet up with the people from The Aurora Chasers, but we forgot out golves, so we had to run back in real quick to get them. The Aurora Chasers went round to pick up a couple more people and then they distributed the gear for people who had rented from them. I had rented a full set of gear from them because I don't have a set of gear that is properly maintained and it's just way easier for me to pony up the cash and get the gear. It's all properly set up and I don't have to bring or worry about anything. I did bring an SD card but I forgot to bring it out along with me so I bought one from them at USD 20.

The Aurora Chasers kept a close eye on the weather conditions so that they could decide where to bring us to catch the Aurora. We drove to somewhere about 27 miles north out of Fairbanks because the clouds were rolling into Fairbanks. Apprently, last night they had to go 200 miles just to find a hole in the clouds! They don't call themselves the Aurora Chasers for nothing!

When we reached the location, they helped us set up the cameras on the tripods and double checked the settings. When Marketa pushed the shutter, and the photo turned up on the LCD, it was amazing what a difference the photo and the actual view from our eyes was. With the eyes, it seemed like just a fuzzy cloud / smoke thing floating by. But when the photo was taken, you could see the lights! It was really amazing!

We spent the rest of the night taking photos of the Aurora, and by the end of the session, they prepared hot drinks for us to warm up. They even had their own personalised reusable mugs! Honestly, I think Fairbanks is easily the best place to catch the Aurora, and going with the Aurora Chasers was a really good idea!