This week Erik and Adam are covering the basics on the Northern Lights and what to consider when trying to spend some time with them. They also cover the best way to try to capture them with a camera as well. Show Notes Photographing the Northern Lights Subscribe: Patreon Spotify iTunes Stitcher Google Play Soundcloud […]
The post Tumblehome: A Boundary Waters Podcast – Northern Lights: Basics & Photography appeared first on Clearwater Outfitters.
Episode Transcript
[0:00:05 – 0:00:08] Adam: The lights of the aurora moved and shifted over the horizon.
[0:00:09 – 0:00:17] Adam: Sometimes there were shafts of yellow tinged with green, then masses of effervescence which moved from east to west and back again.
[0:00:18 – 0:00:24] Adam: Great streamers of bluish-white zigzagged like a tremendous trembling curtain from one end of the sky to the other.
[0:00:25 – 0:00:29] Adam: Streaks of yellow and orange and red shimmered along the flowing borders.
[0:00:30 – 0:00:41] Adam: Never for a moment were they still, fading until they were almost completely gone, only to dance forth again in renewed splendor with infinite combinations and startling patterns of designs.
[0:00:59 – 0:01:00] UNKNOWN: Thank you.
[0:01:27 – 0:01:32] Adam: Welcome to Dumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:01:32 – 0:01:34] Adam: Where are you from?
[0:01:35 – 0:01:38] Adam: From the far north, reaches of Hudson Bay.
[0:01:39 – 0:01:47] Adam: My name is Adam, and with me, as always, is my good friend Eric, here in Studio K on the banks of the K-Dunce River.
[0:01:48 – 0:01:49] Adam: Welcome, Eric.
[0:01:49 – 0:01:50] Erik: Sound like Foghorn Leghorn.
[0:01:51 – 0:01:52] Adam: Welcome.
[0:01:52 – 0:01:52] Adam: I do declare.
[0:01:52 – 0:01:55] Adam: It’s because we’re sitting in front of the big map.
[0:01:55 – 0:02:06] Adam: Here in the true Studio K, here in Outfitting, I see a few paddles, I see some books, and I see some old Christmas decor.
[0:02:06 – 0:02:07] Adam: I don’t know what that’s all about.
[0:02:07 – 0:02:09] Adam: I do see an ironing board.
[0:02:10 – 0:02:14] Adam: Well, you know, it’s outfitting and the library slash adjunct storage.
[0:02:15 – 0:02:15] Adam: Outfitting plus.
[0:02:15 – 0:02:16] Adam: Yeah.
[0:02:16 – 0:02:18] Adam: You don’t know what you’re going to find in this room.
[0:02:18 – 0:02:23] Adam: We got a Wintermaker 19 cherry wine bubbling in the corner here.
[0:02:23 – 0:02:33] Adam: We got some taposh, some old fermented pineapples in a bowl behind us here on the shelf along next to the John Bear Grease poster.
[0:02:33 – 0:02:38] Adam: You never know what you’re going to see here in Studio K. It’s a cornucopia of life in the Northwoods.
[0:02:39 – 0:02:46] Adam: That’s right, and we have a big window facing north, in which I can see, yeah, just over there, Polaris.
[0:02:47 – 0:02:47] Adam: Shimmering.
[0:02:47 – 0:02:49] Adam: Shimmering in the distance.
[0:02:49 – 0:02:56] Erik: So we are continuing our discussion on the Northern Lights.
[0:02:56 – 0:03:01] Erik: We are, before that, brought to you by Clearwater Historic Lodge and Canoe Outfitters.
[0:03:02 – 0:03:04] Erik: Big shout out to the lodge tonight.
[0:03:04 – 0:03:04] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[0:03:05 – 0:03:08] Erik: How many Northern Lights have danced over that lodge?
[0:03:08 – 0:03:09] Erik: Too many.
[0:03:09 – 0:03:11] Adam: How many Steve has that lodge seen?
[0:03:12 – 0:03:16] Erik: I’ve witnessed a proton arc over that bad lodge, bad boy lodge.
[0:03:19 – 0:03:20] Adam: Charlie is not pleased.
[0:03:20 – 0:03:23] Adam: Sorry, bad choice of words.
[0:03:23 – 0:03:25] Adam: I’ve seen the proton arc.
[0:03:25 – 0:03:31] Adam: I mean, Steve, I’ve seen it twice now there at Clearwater Lodge and nowhere else.
[0:03:32 – 0:03:32] Erik: Mm-hmm.
[0:03:33 – 0:03:33] Adam: Ten years apart.
[0:03:35 – 0:03:39] Adam: I average one Steve every ten years.
[0:03:39 – 0:03:41] Erik: 27,000 day cycle.
[0:03:42 – 0:03:44] Adam: The big pine tree out in front of the lodge.
[0:03:44 – 0:03:47] Adam: How many Steve has that pine tree seen?
[0:03:48 – 0:03:50] Erik: How many hairs have been singed on that tree?
[0:03:50 – 0:03:53] Adam: How many yellowy curtains of ribbons of color?
[0:03:54 – 0:03:54] Erik: Oh my.
[0:03:55 – 0:03:57] Erik: Chris John Birkeland would say zero.
[0:03:57 – 0:03:57] Adam: Zero.
[0:03:58 – 0:04:06] Adam: The tree was wearing a felted hat, so it cannot have its hair singed, nor needles, nor pine cone, nor saples.
[0:04:06 – 0:04:10] Erik: We are also sponsored by… We’ve got a special one here.
[0:04:10 – 0:04:11] Adam: Ooh, I’m excited for these.
[0:04:11 – 0:04:18] Adam: I went to the Muni after work today looking for something, and I found these.
[0:04:18 – 0:04:22] Adam: It’s an Alaskan Smash Galaxy double IPA.
[0:04:24 – 0:04:32] Adam: It looks to be a heavy hitter in a glass bottle, and it’s got a beautiful picture of the Northern Lights.
[0:04:33 – 0:04:37] Adam: That is, in fact, a picture of the Aurora Boreale.
[0:04:37 – 0:04:38] Adam: The Boreale.
[0:04:38 – 0:04:40] Adam: The Lumis Boreale.
[0:04:40 – 0:04:41] Adam: The Vindleys.
[0:04:41 – 0:04:42] Adam: The Vindleys.
[0:04:43 – 0:04:44] Adam: I just saw it on the shelf.
[0:04:44 – 0:04:47] Adam: I said, oh, that beer’s got a nice Vinley’s on it.
[0:04:48 – 0:04:51] Adam: I brought it to the counter and they go, oh, yeah, we just got that in today.
[0:04:51 – 0:04:52] Adam: Literally.
[0:04:52 – 0:04:54] Adam: I was like, yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this.
[0:04:54 – 0:04:57] Adam: I don’t normally reach for the Alaskan, but I’m excited.
[0:04:58 – 0:05:03] Adam: I think this is the first time we’ve had an Alaskan brewing company as our sponsor.
[0:05:03 – 0:05:03] Adam: Yeah.
[0:05:04 – 0:05:05] Erik: Yeah, I would tend to agree with that.
[0:05:05 – 0:05:07] Erik: I don’t know if I can remember anything.
[0:05:07 – 0:05:14] Erik: We were sponsored for the first time in podcast history last week by a cocktail.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:14] Erik: Yeah.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:16] Erik: This week, first time by Alaskan Brewery.
[0:05:17 – 0:05:18] Erik: All right.
[0:05:18 – 0:05:23] Erik: We only have one bottle opener, so you’re going to miss out on stereo, but we’re going to get double stereo on this one.
[0:05:26 – 0:05:27] Erik: That’s right.
[0:05:31 – 0:05:32] Adam: That’s pretty nice, though.
[0:05:32 – 0:05:35] Adam: Had the old drawer beer holder open.
[0:05:36 – 0:05:36] Adam: Nice.
[0:05:41 – 0:05:43] Adam: Nothing holds a beer like a nice drawer.
[0:05:43 – 0:05:44] Adam: Yeah.
[0:05:44 – 0:05:48] Adam: We’re not totally set up here in the outfitting room for recording, but…
[0:05:49 – 0:05:55] Adam: We had some noise issues out in the main room, so we’ve secluded ourselves back here with the big map.
[0:05:56 – 0:06:02] Erik: I do like the little makeshift setups that we always seem to come up with.
[0:06:02 – 0:06:04] Adam: This is better than some.
[0:06:04 – 0:06:07] Adam: We’ve had some that are much more questionable.
[0:06:07 – 0:06:14] Adam: I don’t think anything will ever match the episode where we recorded in the car by the Grammaray Library.
[0:06:15 – 0:06:22] Erik: Yeah, I mean, I’ve gone through and listened to a few of those episodes over the last couple of months from last summer.
[0:06:23 – 0:06:28] Erik: And it’s shocking how well that sounds, considering where we were.
[0:06:28 – 0:06:29] Erik: Yeah.
[0:06:29 – 0:06:35] Erik: Sitting in a parking lot, making fun of a PT cruiser with a garbage bag window.
[0:06:35 – 0:06:35] Erik: Yeah.
[0:06:37 – 0:06:40] Adam: I haven’t thought of that PT Cruiser in a while now.
[0:06:40 – 0:06:42] Erik: I mean, yeah.
[0:06:42 – 0:06:46] Erik: I don’t know how we get away with some of our locations, but yeah.
[0:06:46 – 0:06:53] Erik: This is, I would say, the upper 50th percentile of decent audio recordings.
[0:06:54 – 0:06:56] Erik: Nothing is going to ever compare to the wall tent.
[0:06:57 – 0:06:58] Erik: Immaculate acoustics in there.
[0:06:59 – 0:06:59] Adam: Yeah.
[0:06:59 – 0:07:00] Erik: But…
[0:07:01 – 0:07:10] Erik: We are a week or two, depending on when this comes out, removed from a two-hour epic episode
[0:07:11 – 0:07:38] Erik: deep dive into the life and times of christian berkland his fertilizer guns and his feud with mr waterfalls mr waterfall the waterfall purchaser sick son of a i’m looking at you disney you are missing out on a movie opportunity here a fertilizer furnace competition two yeah the germans win
[0:07:40 – 0:07:44] Erik: But, you know, I think there was a lot of explanation in that show.
[0:07:44 – 0:07:45] Erik: The Tortero.
[0:07:45 – 0:07:46] Erik: The Torella.
[0:07:46 – 0:07:48] Adam: Yeah, the little Torella.
[0:07:48 – 0:07:50] Erik: The little universe that he made.
[0:07:50 – 0:07:51] Adam: The much bigger Torella.
[0:07:51 – 0:07:53] Erik: And if you didn’t listen to the last episode…
[0:07:53 – 0:07:54] Adam: I’m still picturing it.
[0:07:54 – 0:07:57] Adam: I don’t know how that Torella really would have looked, but…
[0:07:58 – 0:07:58] Adam: I can show you…
[0:07:58 – 0:08:00] Adam: It’s like the Spencer’s Gift thing.
[0:08:00 – 0:08:03] Erik: Black and white picture of what it looked like from back in the day.
[0:08:03 – 0:08:05] Erik: But I think without color, it doesn’t do it justice.
[0:08:06 – 0:08:17] Adam: But we live in 2019 and we have HD internet and color photography and really nice digital cameras these days.
[0:08:18 – 0:08:23] Adam: So we can all imagine and see the Northern Lights in real time in HD.
[0:08:24 – 0:08:51] Erik: yes we live in amazing times in time-lapse photography and video and this yeah his little uh his display in the early 20th century was uh ahead of its time i still would love to see it but yeah i mean it’s 3d though yeah like even television’s not 3d even 3d tv’s not 3d get out of here with that whoa so that was a
[0:08:53 – 0:09:14] Erik: obviously very historical representation of the aurora and the early science behind it well there were some explanations as to the aurora i think that was super interesting does hear the like genesis of the original correct explanation
[0:09:14 – 0:09:17] Erik: Yeah, which wasn’t even recognized for like 50 years.
[0:09:17 – 0:09:24] Adam: Yeah, like many geniuses, not appreciated until well after they had left us here on this dark planet.
[0:09:25 – 0:09:30] Erik: Yeah, so we’re going to spend this episode kind of a little less…
[0:09:32 – 0:09:47] Erik: hell bent on an outline but also giving a little bit more of a basic rundown on how the northern lights affect us in the boundary waters some pragmatics to consider
[0:09:48 – 0:09:50] Adam: Yeah, and you want to come up and see the aurora.
[0:09:50 – 0:09:52] Erik: It’s one of the top questions that I get.
[0:09:52 – 0:09:53] Adam: How do you do it?
[0:09:53 – 0:10:00] Erik: Yeah, and what if you want to bring up a camera and try to take pictures of it or just generally take pictures of the night sky?
[0:10:00 – 0:10:02] Adam: Which is just as cool.
[0:10:02 – 0:10:02] Erik: Yeah.
[0:10:02 – 0:10:03] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:10:03 – 0:10:09] Erik: I mean, I get a kick out of just getting the distant glow.
[0:10:09 – 0:10:13] Erik: I know it’s light pollution, but even the distant glow of Thunder Bay on Clearwater is crazy.
[0:10:13 – 0:10:15] Erik: It’s like how far away it is.
[0:10:15 – 0:10:21] Adam: Or on Poplar, you can get the little glow of the Grand Marais airport and Grand Marais itself.
[0:10:21 – 0:10:23] Adam: You can see that with the naked eye.
[0:10:23 – 0:10:33] Erik: I remember back that one long weekend we spent out on Swamp, the really low, hazy clouds were reflecting that airport.
[0:10:34 – 0:10:37] Erik: So we were getting like this occasional flash in the sky.
[0:10:37 – 0:10:42] Erik: And it was just because of the way that the light and the crystals in the sky were illuminating it.
[0:10:42 – 0:10:42] Erik: It was crazy.
[0:10:43 – 0:10:49] Erik: So it’s going to be a little bit less, not that last week was really formal, but a little bit more.
[0:10:49 – 0:10:50] Adam: Well, I’m not wearing my tuxedo anymore.
[0:10:50 – 0:10:51] Adam: Yeah, you are in fact.
[0:10:52 – 0:10:53] Adam: I went down to a hoodie here.
[0:10:54 – 0:10:55] Adam: Hoodie and sweatpants.
[0:10:56 – 0:10:57] Adam: And slippers, yeah.
[0:10:57 – 0:10:59] Erik: They are pleated sweatpants, though.
[0:10:59 – 0:11:00] Adam: They’re pretty fashionable.
[0:11:00 – 0:11:03] Adam: I got them at TJ Maxx.
[0:11:03 – 0:11:04] Adam: Pretty cool.
[0:11:06 – 0:11:14] Erik: Maybe some more direct explanations and some more direct things that you can apply.
[0:11:14 – 0:11:16] Erik: Versus like a kind of a long-winded story.
[0:11:17 – 0:11:19] Erik: I think the long-winded story has its time and its place.
[0:11:19 – 0:11:33] Erik: But if you’re just looking for the nitty-gritty, the black and white, and everything that we essentially at this point understand about the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis, we are not experts.
[0:11:33 – 0:11:39] Erik: I think it’s a pretty fully researched field still.
[0:11:40 – 0:11:42] Erik: I don’t think it’s 100% understood.
[0:11:42 – 0:11:43] Erik: The research is ongoing.
[0:11:43 – 0:11:44] Erik: It is ongoing.
[0:11:46 – 0:11:46] Erik: Yeah.
[0:11:46 – 0:11:49] Erik: There are certain aspects to the Northern Lights that are still…
[0:11:51 – 0:12:17] Erik: not fully understood and somewhat misunderstood which is kind of cool to have something like that in 2019 that although it might be some of the minutia about like you know how long it takes for the electrons to interact with the the magnetic field in the ionosphere and why it’s somewhat impossible to forecast
[0:12:19 – 0:12:22] Erik: It’s generally understood, but it’s not fully understood.
[0:12:22 – 0:12:32] Erik: You know, you look at like forecasting weather and even that is like pretty well understood and how that varies in terms of what actually happens.
[0:12:32 – 0:12:32] Erik: Sure.
[0:12:33 – 0:12:39] Erik: And that’s like leaps and bounds beyond forecasting space weather.
[0:12:39 – 0:12:41] Erik: So both of those fields.
[0:12:41 – 0:12:44] Adam: I think that’s the first use of space weather and it’s a great term.
[0:12:44 – 0:12:47] Adam: Yeah, that’ll be aptly thrown.
[0:12:47 – 0:12:47] Adam: Yeah.
[0:12:47 – 0:12:51] Erik: one of our recommended websites going forward.
[0:12:51 – 0:12:52] Erik: But where do you want to start?
[0:12:54 – 0:12:57] Erik: Just get a nice baseline of basics.
[0:12:58 – 0:13:11] Adam: Yeah, let’s just go into, like, you know, I think we’ve pretty much covered with the last episode kind of what’s happening, but maybe we can just start with there.
[0:13:12 – 0:13:13] Adam: Do we want to just read this?
[0:13:14 – 0:13:15] Adam: Sure.
[0:13:15 – 0:13:15] Adam: It’s pretty good.
[0:13:15 – 0:13:17] Erik: Yeah, I think this is a great boil down.
[0:13:18 – 0:13:19] Erik: What causes the aurora?
[0:13:21 – 0:13:27] Adam: The making of an aurora is an intricate dance of particles and magnetism between the Sun and Earth.
[0:13:28 – 0:13:35] Adam: The Sun continuously produces a solar wind made of charged particles carrying the Sun’s magnetic field.
[0:13:37 – 0:13:51] Adam: As the solar wind nears Earth, it causes the magnetic field of the Earth to be drawn into a giant teardrop shape, squashed on the side closer to the sun, and drawn out in a long tail on the side farthest from the sun.
[0:13:52 – 0:13:55] Adam: This giant magnetic bubble is called the magnetosphere.
[0:13:57 – 0:14:02] Adam: So, this is coming from the website aurorasaurus.org.
[0:14:03 – 0:14:06] Adam: We had mentioned in the previous episode my sister Megan is a genius of…
[0:14:10 – 0:14:11] Adam: She’s some sort of…
[0:14:14 – 0:14:18] Adam: Her field was physics, but her real specialty was in studying the aurora.
[0:14:19 – 0:14:22] Adam: And she got the chance to study up in Norway.
[0:14:22 – 0:14:28] Adam: She shot rockets into the aurora themselves to try and understand their composition more.
[0:14:29 – 0:14:32] Adam: Honestly, I’m not even sure what she was truly studying.
[0:14:32 – 0:14:39] Adam: I’ve asked her to explain to me, and I don’t think I’m capable of understanding the complexities of what Megan was up to up there.
[0:14:39 – 0:14:44] Adam: But she was deeply involved in it, and so when we were planning these episodes, I was kind of talking with her.
[0:14:46 – 0:14:52] Adam: And she suggested aurorasaurus.org is a great source for information.
[0:14:52 – 0:14:57] Adam: So we’re starting there and I recommend if anybody really is interested to check it out.
[0:14:57 – 0:15:01] Adam: They have a lot of great videos in there that we can’t convey on this podcast.
[0:15:01 – 0:15:04] Erik: Yeah, we will definitely provide links to those though.
[0:15:04 – 0:15:05] Adam: Absolutely.
[0:15:05 – 0:15:08] Adam: So sourcing our information here appropriately.
[0:15:08 – 0:15:11] Adam: That’s what we’re going off of right now.
[0:15:11 – 0:15:12] Adam: Go ahead and check it out yourself.
[0:15:12 – 0:15:13] Adam: It’s super interesting stuff.
[0:15:13 – 0:15:19] Adam: There is a lot of like weird disinformation on the Northern Lights, such as the idea that they make noises.
[0:15:20 – 0:15:24] Adam: or that they’re like a reflection off the polar ice caps of some sort.
[0:15:26 – 0:15:27] Adam: No, it’s not the case.
[0:15:27 – 0:15:28] Adam: This is what’s happening.
[0:15:28 – 0:15:31] Adam: It’s solar particles interacting.
[0:15:32 – 0:15:38] Adam: I guess I didn’t fully understand that it’s the sun’s magnetism itself interacting with the Earth’s magnetism.
[0:15:38 – 0:15:39] Adam: It’s all magnetism.
[0:15:40 – 0:15:43] Adam: And I still can’t get over the fact that Earth is a big magnet.
[0:15:44 – 0:15:45] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[0:15:45 – 0:15:49] Adam: Due to its molten core of gooey chocolate.
[0:15:49 – 0:15:55] Erik: Yeah, I mean, everybody knows that a chocolate bar does hold magnetic properties.
[0:15:56 – 0:16:00] Erik: The bumpy side is positive and the flat bottom side is the negative side.
[0:16:01 – 0:16:15] Erik: But the one thing just that I found fascinating in comparing last week’s episode in thinking about that little micro creation of the Aurora is…
[0:16:16 – 0:16:23] Erik: how symmetrical that must have appeared and how symmetrical I painted it in my mind.
[0:16:23 – 0:16:23] Erik: Yeah.
[0:16:23 – 0:16:25] Erik: When in reality, it’s all…
[0:16:26 – 0:16:48] Erik: greatly skewed in however the earth is facing the sun so you get like it’s not coming out this magnetic field isn’t coming off in like a big circle that directly curls back around from north to south pole even wave yeah so that’s why i think i mean one of the reasons why you get those
[0:16:49 – 0:16:59] Erik: Those shimmers and those shifts is that magnetic line getting blown by the sun kind of off into the direction that it’s coming from.
[0:16:59 – 0:17:04] Erik: And so like you see, we’ll link to this page, but the video that…
[0:17:04 – 0:17:09] Adam: The video does a great job of showing those oscillations and the reverberations.
[0:17:10 – 0:17:13] Adam: It’s like you picture a speaker throwing bass.
[0:17:13 – 0:17:14] Adam: Yeah, exactly.
[0:17:16 – 0:17:24] Erik: And you can see whatever direction the sun is coming, it’s compressing those magnetic fields and then it’s pushing them back.
[0:17:24 – 0:17:31] Erik: Almost like you see those slow motion videos where they’re showing aerodynamics across an object.
[0:17:31 – 0:17:31] Erik: Yeah.
[0:17:31 – 0:17:40] Erik: And they are curling back around the backside, the dark side, which is where a lot of times that’s, you know, obviously you’re going to see the auroras on that dark side.
[0:17:40 – 0:17:42] Erik: And it comes from that bending back around.
[0:17:42 – 0:17:43] Erik: Back down.
[0:17:43 – 0:17:45] Erik: Aerodynamic, basically.
[0:17:45 – 0:17:50] Adam: As it arcs back into the Earth’s magnetosphere itself.
[0:17:51 – 0:17:57] Erik: Yeah, well, Birkeland’s little Torella was like a really great example of how it could actually happen.
[0:17:57 – 0:17:58] Erik: It was so controlled.
[0:17:58 – 0:17:59] Erik: It was very controlled.
[0:17:59 – 0:18:04] Erik: The one thing that wasn’t being taken into account was the actual force pushing it.
[0:18:04 – 0:18:08] Erik: So it was basically just like two evenly distributed circles.
[0:18:08 – 0:18:14] Erik: So that was the one thing I noticed just right off the bat that we’ve come to learn as of right now.
[0:18:15 – 0:18:16] Adam: This is not a laboratory.
[0:18:16 – 0:18:16] Adam: Yeah.
[0:18:17 – 0:18:17] Erik: No.
[0:18:18 – 0:18:20] Adam: So this is real life in the north.
[0:18:22 – 0:18:36] Adam: And I think we mentioned this last episode too, like we’re pretty far up north here on the Gunflint Trail, almost into Canada, but we’re still not quite far enough north to get like regular Aurora up here.
[0:18:36 – 0:18:42] Adam: It’s got to be in a KP4 or above to even consider going to look for them.
[0:18:42 – 0:18:47] Adam: I mean, maybe on a KP3 you’d get a bit of a faint glow on the horizon if you have a wide open look.
[0:18:47 – 0:18:52] Erik: We’ll talk about just the generals on what the KP means in a little bit.
[0:18:52 – 0:18:53] Adam: Yeah, we’ll get back to that.
[0:18:54 – 0:18:59] Erik: So we’re going to move on to some basics on where and when.
[0:19:00 – 0:19:10] Erik: And the one thing that I also found interesting was it’s kind of one of the misconceptions that the farther north you go…
[0:19:11 – 0:19:14] Erik: the more likely you are to see auroras.
[0:19:14 – 0:19:16] Erik: But it’s actually an oval.
[0:19:17 – 0:19:18] Erik: Kind of like a halo.
[0:19:18 – 0:19:25] Erik: Yeah, it’s a halo both on the north and the south, which is interestingly, they’re commensurate.
[0:19:25 – 0:19:28] Erik: So if there’s a storm, it’s going to be…
[0:19:28 – 0:19:30] Adam: It affects both poles.
[0:19:30 – 0:19:39] Erik: Yeah, there’s going to be aurora australias, the southern form of the aurora borealis.
[0:19:39 – 0:19:40] Erik: Visities.
[0:19:41 – 0:19:44] Erik: Yeah, it doesn’t concentrate the farther north you go.
[0:19:44 – 0:19:45] Erik: It’s basically like a little halo.
[0:19:46 – 0:19:57] Erik: And it is, for all intents and purposes, pretty comparable to what we were talking about last week.
[0:19:57 – 0:20:06] Erik: Like, kind of basically, it almost lines up with the Arctic Circle, more or less, in its most regular occurrences.
[0:20:08 – 0:20:11] Adam: Is that how they came up with the Arctic Circle?
[0:20:12 – 0:20:13] Erik: That’s a good question, actually.
[0:20:14 – 0:20:16] Erik: That might be, yeah, I don’t know.
[0:20:16 – 0:20:18] Adam: There’s got to be some sort of correlation.
[0:20:18 – 0:20:33] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know how arbitrary that designation is, if it is related to a temperature change or if it is based on the occurrence of the lights themselves.
[0:20:33 – 0:20:34] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:20:35 – 0:20:59] Erik: but so where we’ve kind of designated that to a certain extent and that’s generally they’re going to be occurring around that like arctic circle line but based on the intensity that’s when they come farther south and that’s when you see them in northern minnesota
[0:21:00 – 0:21:22] Erik: north dakota mid the you know middle of europe um i know in the past there’s been some storms that have gone far enough south to like missouri oh yeah and i think it’s even on this uh aurorasaurus it says uh that there was aurora seen in alabama in 2011 sure like that’s pretty crazy
[0:21:23 – 0:21:29] Adam: Yeah, I mean, I remember 2011, there being some pretty great storms up here.
[0:21:30 – 0:21:34] Adam: So you could imagine that that would pulsate farther down south.
[0:21:34 – 0:21:36] Adam: 2011 was a very good year.
[0:21:37 – 0:21:45] Erik: Yes, and we talked about it last week a little bit, but that was the peak of the solar max, I think.
[0:21:47 – 0:21:52] Erik: If you’re listening to this in 2019, unfortunately, we are kind of on the low end of that.
[0:21:52 – 0:21:54] Erik: We’re pretty close to solar minimum.
[0:21:54 – 0:21:58] Erik: I don’t know if we’re in it, coming up to it, or we’ve passed it.
[0:21:59 – 0:22:00] Erik: You kind of have to wait and see.
[0:22:00 – 0:22:04] Erik: You usually can’t tell until you’re out of it, but we’re very close to it.
[0:22:05 – 0:22:07] Erik: I think we’re at like three weeks straight without a sunspot.
[0:22:08 – 0:22:11] Erik: But regardless, we did mention this.
[0:22:11 – 0:22:12] Adam: The sun is very chill right now.
[0:22:12 – 0:22:13] Erik: Very chill.
[0:22:13 – 0:22:19] Erik: But you still, I mean, you don’t have to have sun spots to have aurora.
[0:22:19 – 0:22:23] Erik: It’s a lot of, there’s always magnetism coming off the sun.
[0:22:23 – 0:22:25] Adam: You don’t need a hurricane on the sun.
[0:22:25 – 0:22:28] Adam: Yeah, you just have to get the energy.
[0:22:28 – 0:22:31] Erik: You just have to travel farther north to find it.
[0:22:31 – 0:22:41] Erik: Like if you’re not working with a sunspot or a coronal mass ejection off of the sun, you’re not going to really get to see the auroras in Wisconsin.
[0:22:42 – 0:22:45] Erik: You really need that powerful burst of energy.
[0:22:46 – 0:23:00] Erik: And one of the things that was actually pretty well determined by the original Birkeland crew expedition was that auroras form between 100 to more than 500 kilometers above the Earth.
[0:23:01 – 0:23:10] Erik: And for perspective, this harkens back to our International Space Station question from last summer.
[0:23:10 – 0:23:10] Erik: Yes.
[0:23:11 – 0:23:29] Erik: that is flying about 300 miles or 500 kilometers so at the top end of how far the auroras go up into space so they’re over the top there yeah they’re not seven miles above us they’re way over the top of the northern lights yeah so lucky ducks yeah must be a cool view
[0:23:30 – 0:23:36] Adam: I think what we’re looking at now right here is an artist’s conception of the Aurora halo.
[0:23:37 – 0:23:38] Erik: Thanks, NASA.
[0:23:38 – 0:23:38] Adam: Cool.
[0:23:39 – 0:23:41] Adam: But that’s probably how it looks if you’re in the ISS.
[0:23:41 – 0:23:41] Erik: Yeah.
[0:23:42 – 0:23:46] Erik: So this is a when and where section of the discussion.
[0:23:47 – 0:23:48] Adam: Obviously, you want to get out.
[0:23:48 – 0:23:51] Adam: If it’s cloudy, stay in bed.
[0:23:52 – 0:23:57] Adam: If you’re looking like you’ve got a clear night, get as far away from a major city as possible.
[0:23:58 – 0:24:02] Adam: Any light pollution sources, put them as far away from you as you can.
[0:24:04 – 0:24:08] Adam: But, so… And get a look at the north sky with a nice…
[0:24:09 – 0:24:11] Adam: If you preferably could get on the south shore of a big lake.
[0:24:12 – 0:24:12] Erik: Yes.
[0:24:13 – 0:24:13] Adam: Looking north.
[0:24:14 – 0:24:15] Adam: Big sky is what you want.
[0:24:16 – 0:24:19] Adam: Give yourself the optimal amount of sky to look at.
[0:24:19 – 0:24:19] Erik: Yeah.
[0:24:20 – 0:24:24] Erik: It’s one of the most common questions that we get at Clearwater.
[0:24:24 – 0:24:30] Erik: I imagine most people up here that are answering phone calls, outfitters, resorts, lodges.
[0:24:31 – 0:24:32] Erik: I mean, people…
[0:24:34 – 0:24:39] Erik: Associate our neck of the woods with being able to see the northern lights.
[0:24:40 – 0:24:42] Adam: What kind of cheese would go well with such and such?
[0:24:43 – 0:24:46] Adam: And also, when can I see the aurora?
[0:24:47 – 0:24:48] Adam: Tonight.
[0:24:48 – 0:24:50] Adam: And you should try an Hermitage brie.
[0:24:51 – 0:24:54] Erik: So, let’s take this moment to…
[0:24:54 – 0:25:00] Erik: I’m going to answer it like I would answer somebody who was just calling on the phone to ask that question.
[0:25:01 – 0:25:01] Erik: Which…
[0:25:02 – 0:25:09] Erik: On one hand, I can understand the confusion, but on the other hand, it’s actually very simple if you just think about it in this way.
[0:25:10 – 0:25:15] Erik: There’s nothing that you can do to control the activity on the sun.
[0:25:16 – 0:25:20] Erik: And that interaction from the sun and its magnetism…
[0:25:21 – 0:25:35] Erik: with the earth’s magnetism is completely random although it does somewhat fluctuate a little bit heavier towards those higher peaks like we were talking about with that 11 year cycle so it can happen whenever
[0:25:36 – 0:25:40] Erik: A lot of people assume you can only see the Northern Lights in the winter.
[0:25:41 – 0:25:43] Erik: And that’s not true.
[0:25:44 – 0:25:49] Erik: What it boils down to is just, if you just think about it, you have longer nights.
[0:25:50 – 0:25:51] Erik: There’s more dark sky.
[0:25:52 – 0:25:57] Erik: The sun is tilted in a way that allows for our eyes to see them.
[0:25:58 – 0:26:03] Erik: And it’s colder in the winter, typically meaning clearer skies.
[0:26:04 – 0:26:12] Erik: So most people just see that relationship with the Northern Lights in winter as being the end all, be all.
[0:26:14 – 0:26:15] Erik: And the…
[0:26:18 – 0:26:31] Erik: Conversely, the summer, we were kind of right on the edge in the Boundary Waters of actually still having a little bit of an opportunity, even around the solstice, to actually get some darkness.
[0:26:32 – 0:26:33] Erik: It’s late.
[0:26:33 – 0:26:43] Erik: It’s late, but it does… You can still see the Northern Lights if it’s powerful and you’re willing to stay up until midnight, one o’clock, two.
[0:26:43 – 0:26:45] Erik: We do actually see some darkness.
[0:26:45 – 0:26:45] Erik: Yeah.
[0:26:46 – 0:26:58] Erik: It’s the closer to the Arctic Circle people that they get a almost unlimited opportunity at viewing them in the winter, but then almost no opportunity to see them in the summer.
[0:26:59 – 0:27:08] Erik: So if you’re coming up in the summer and it’s in like mid-June, either you have to be willing to stay up until it gets dark.
[0:27:09 – 0:27:10] Adam: Like midnight.
[0:27:10 – 0:27:10] Adam: Midnight.
[0:27:11 – 0:27:12] Erik: Yeah, at midnight at the earliest.
[0:27:12 – 0:27:13] Erik: For like true darkness.
[0:27:14 – 0:27:14] Erik: Yeah.
[0:27:14 – 0:27:16] Erik: And it’s only like a couple of hours.
[0:27:16 – 0:27:20] Erik: So your window of opportunity gets greatly diminished.
[0:27:20 – 0:27:21] Adam: Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.
[0:27:22 – 0:27:23] Adam: It’s a window of opportunity.
[0:27:24 – 0:27:25] Erik: And we’ve been there.
[0:27:27 – 0:27:35] Erik: You look at the space weather forecast, you can see the oval is over us.
[0:27:35 – 0:27:37] Erik: We have a really good chance of seeing the aurora.
[0:27:38 – 0:27:39] Erik: It’s 8 o’clock at night.
[0:27:39 – 0:27:40] Adam: It just needs to get dark.
[0:27:40 – 0:27:41] Adam: It just needs to get dark.
[0:27:41 – 0:27:43] Adam: And the clouds need to stay away.
[0:27:43 – 0:27:48] Erik: And that’s the other factor that a lot of times you don’t consider is the cloud factor.
[0:27:49 – 0:27:51] Adam: So, yeah, it could be like, okay, yeah, it’s going to be dark soon.
[0:27:51 – 0:27:52] Adam: It’s going to be dark soon.
[0:27:52 – 0:27:55] Adam: And then the clouds move in at the last second.
[0:27:55 – 0:27:57] Adam: Or vice versa, you know.
[0:27:58 – 0:28:02] Adam: It just, there’s a multitude of things that have to go right for you.
[0:28:03 – 0:28:07] Erik: And the last one is the last big one that you can’t control is the moon.
[0:28:08 – 0:28:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:28:08 – 0:28:09] Adam: Oh gosh.
[0:28:09 – 0:28:15] Adam: The other night, the other night it was full and it was, it was like somebody was out there with a floodlight.
[0:28:15 – 0:28:15] Erik: Oh yeah.
[0:28:16 – 0:28:17] Erik: And with the reflecting off of the snow.
[0:28:18 – 0:28:18] Adam: Yeah.
[0:28:19 – 0:28:19] Adam: Yeah.
[0:28:19 – 0:28:25] Erik: Can be pretty much impossible to even see like a really intense storm if the full moon’s out in the winter.
[0:28:26 – 0:28:29] Erik: Cause the light pollution just to directly to your eyes is so strong.
[0:28:29 – 0:28:31] Adam: Just the moon count as light pollution.
[0:28:31 – 0:28:32] Adam: And this is the instance.
[0:28:32 – 0:28:33] Erik: Yeah, it does.
[0:28:33 – 0:28:38] Erik: If it’s getting in the way of Aurora Borealis, geomagnetic storm, it’s pollution.
[0:28:38 – 0:28:40] Erik: I can see the moon whenever.
[0:28:41 – 0:28:41] Adam: Yeah.
[0:28:42 – 0:28:51] Adam: Like when I have to go out and pee at night and I’m walking the dog and it’s like, I need sunglasses in the night because of the full moon when it’s this snowy.
[0:28:52 – 0:28:52] Erik: Yeah.
[0:28:53 – 0:28:53] Adam: That’s not cool.
[0:28:54 – 0:28:55] Adam: Thanks for nothing, moon.
[0:28:55 – 0:28:55] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:28:56 – 0:28:59] Erik: I mean, it has its benefits in some ways.
[0:29:00 – 0:29:00] Erik: Yeah.
[0:29:01 – 0:29:03] Erik: Well, you can do a cool night hike.
[0:29:03 – 0:29:05] Erik: Yeah, that’s part of it.
[0:29:05 – 0:29:11] Erik: There’s just that feeling of being able to walk around without headlamp or anything at night.
[0:29:13 – 0:29:13] Erik: And, you know, you can…
[0:29:14 – 0:29:18] Erik: I mean, your eyes can adjust to it in such a way where you don’t need any assistance.
[0:29:19 – 0:29:19] Erik: That’s incredible.
[0:29:19 – 0:29:20] Adam: Yeah, that is pretty neat.
[0:29:21 – 0:29:24] Erik: But if it gets in the way of watching the Northern Lights, that’s always frustrating.
[0:29:24 – 0:29:26] Erik: So, I mean, you just think about it.
[0:29:26 – 0:29:28] Erik: We’re far enough south that…
[0:29:29 – 0:29:40] Erik: The occasional storms that we get, they still need to coincide with a lot of other factors occurring.
[0:29:42 – 0:29:46] Erik: Happening in the dark, under clear skies, with little to no moonlight.
[0:29:47 – 0:29:55] Erik: That’s a, I mean, just throwing the moon into the factor, into the equation, that’s like two weeks every month.
[0:29:56 – 0:29:58] Erik: Where it’s not like too bright.
[0:29:58 – 0:30:02] Erik: And then, so within those two weeks, you need to hope that it’s going to be mostly clear.
[0:30:03 – 0:30:06] Erik: And then you also need to hope that you don’t have to stay up until one o’clock in the morning.
[0:30:07 – 0:30:07] Adam: Also, you have to…
[0:30:08 – 0:30:09] Erik: Sometimes people are fine with that, but…
[0:30:10 – 0:30:34] Erik: i’m not usually no i’m not but if you’re visiting yeah yeah you’re yeah i mean if you want to see them you know if i flew to the other side of the world and i wanted to see the northern lights i you know i wouldn’t necessarily be too worried about up in the castle yeah up in the castle i’d be up all night yeah yeah so those are just some of the things when people call and ask like am i going to see the northern lights and you just consider some of these basics
[0:30:35 – 0:30:35] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:30:36 – 0:30:37] Adam: Have you been naughty or nice?
[0:30:37 – 0:30:38] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know.
[0:30:38 – 0:30:40] Erik: Are you planning on cutting your hair while you’re here?
[0:30:40 – 0:30:45] Erik: Because the Icelandic folk would disapprove of that.
[0:30:45 – 0:30:47] Erik: Are you going to be jingling any lights?
[0:30:48 – 0:30:49] Erik: Do not jingle lights.
[0:30:50 – 0:30:51] Erik: Do not whistle.
[0:30:51 – 0:30:52] Adam: I’m planning on using reindeer power.
[0:30:53 – 0:30:54] Erik: Do not whistle at the Vindleys.
[0:30:55 – 0:30:56] Erik: No, no.
[0:30:57 – 0:31:04] Erik: So we’re going to talk a little bit about the color of the Aurora, why they appear the way that they do.
[0:31:04 – 0:31:06] Adam: I like the stuff about the color, yeah.
[0:31:06 – 0:31:07] Adam: It’s super interesting.
[0:31:08 – 0:31:13] Erik: How that relates to the photography, which I think is…
[0:31:15 – 0:31:27] Erik: like anything, doing a whole lot of good for the Aurora in places where you can see it because it’s kind of getting that out into the world and saying, hey, come and look at these.
[0:31:28 – 0:31:33] Erik: But it’s also like a lot of times the photography that you see, that’s not what Aurora is.
[0:31:33 – 0:31:34] Adam: It’s doctored.
[0:31:34 – 0:31:35] Adam: That’s doctored, baby.
[0:31:35 – 0:31:37] Erik: Here’s the secret.
[0:31:37 – 0:31:41] Erik: Any picture that you see of the Aurora is not actually what it looked like to that photographer ever.
[0:31:41 – 0:31:41] Erik: Ever.
[0:31:42 – 0:31:42] Adam: Ever.
[0:31:45 – 0:31:49] Adam: Even when you see it, it’s not that, you know, just naked eye, it’s not that good.
[0:31:50 – 0:31:51] Erik: Right, that’s what I mean.
[0:31:51 – 0:31:52] Erik: It’s a lie.
[0:31:52 – 0:32:04] Erik: I’ve taken tons of pictures of Aurora, and yes, well, amazing, beautiful, and even bordering on like a spiritual goose pimpling experience.
[0:32:04 – 0:32:09] Erik: And I’m a pretty harsh, like very like black and white cynical guy.
[0:32:10 – 0:32:13] Erik: An intense Aurora experience.
[0:32:14 – 0:32:34] Erik: definitely taking all the science out of it and that’s why i think the aurora is so cool is it’s yeah it’s such a mystery even in the scientific world but there is still something magical and spiritual about the whole thing absolutely that just transcends any form of understanding but we’re going to talk about some of the different colors that do occur
[0:32:36 – 0:32:37] Adam: Right on.
[0:32:38 – 0:32:48] Adam: So you will mostly see them being green and various faint arrays of green.
[0:32:49 – 0:32:55] Adam: And for here in northern Minnesota, you’ll often just see this kind of like pale arc in the north.
[0:32:55 – 0:32:59] Erik: Yeah, very faint green, almost like a lit-up cloud.
[0:32:59 – 0:33:03] Adam: Yeah, and a lot of times you’re like, is that a cloud or is that aurora?
[0:33:04 – 0:33:04] Adam: Yeah.
[0:33:04 – 0:33:06] Adam: It’s just this faint arc of green.
[0:33:07 – 0:33:23] Adam: And I guess that’s probably the most common one, and that is nitrogen atoms, which will glow blue, but a secondary electron hits them.
[0:33:25 – 0:33:28] Adam: Is it oxygen then that makes it glow green?
[0:33:28 – 0:33:28] Adam: Is this what it’s saying?
[0:33:29 – 0:33:38] Erik: Yeah, essentially it’s a spectrum across the sky and the altitude that they occur at.
[0:33:38 – 0:33:41] Adam: Right, so it’s basically above 60 miles.
[0:33:42 – 0:33:43] Adam: Now we’re into miles.
[0:33:43 – 0:33:46] Adam: Why’d they switch from miles to kilometers here?
[0:33:46 – 0:33:52] Adam: Anyways, it’s above 60 miles but below 120, the most common range for this to be happening.
[0:33:52 – 0:33:56] Erik: The broadest range, which I think is why most people see them as like a faint green.
[0:33:56 – 0:33:57] Adam: Right.
[0:33:57 – 0:33:59] Adam: You might get some blue mixed in there, but I don’t know.
[0:34:00 – 0:34:07] Adam: I mean, 99 times out of 100 times that I’ve seen them, the Aurora, they’re green and various shades of green.
[0:34:07 – 0:34:09] Erik: I don’t think I’ve ever seen any blue.
[0:34:09 – 0:34:10] Adam: I’ve never seen any blue ones.
[0:34:10 – 0:34:11] Adam: Not with the naked eye.
[0:34:12 – 0:34:21] Erik: No, and I’ve never seen anything in the faint pink, but those are ones that are occurring below 60 miles above the earth.
[0:34:21 – 0:34:32] Erik: But the one thing that I kind of learned about that is it doesn’t necessarily have to be that they are specifically that low, right?
[0:34:33 – 0:34:38] Erik: But it’s the height that you are viewing them from.
[0:34:38 – 0:34:46] Erik: So that’s why a lot of the times when you see pictures from like Nebraska and Kansas and stuff, they’re being viewed at a really low angle.
[0:34:46 – 0:34:47] Erik: Such a severe angle.
[0:34:47 – 0:34:48] Erik: Through 60 miles.
[0:34:48 – 0:34:49] Erik: That’s why they’re red.
[0:34:49 – 0:34:52] Erik: That they turn like pink almost.
[0:34:52 – 0:34:52] Erik: Okay, sure.
[0:34:52 – 0:34:52] Erik: Yeah.
[0:34:54 – 0:35:03] Erik: So I think the one time that I was able to capture red, which is above 120 miles…
[0:35:06 – 0:35:27] Erik: was the that was 2011 that was that kp8 adventure that we had that was wild and those were the tallest like just shooting way over the top sky yeah and i think that’s why and they they didn’t even really show up that red to my eye but in the pictures they did and so that’s
[0:35:29 – 0:35:48] Erik: uh a side of it that i don’t know if i can fully explain why in really good science but the the pictures that you see of the aurora definitely are able to collect more of the colors onto one image than your eyes can
[0:35:49 – 0:35:49] Adam: Right.
[0:35:49 – 0:35:50] Adam: At one time.
[0:35:50 – 0:35:50] Erik: Yeah.
[0:35:50 – 0:35:59] Erik: So it’s really hard for your eyes to actually capture any variation in the colors unless they’re extremely intense.
[0:35:59 – 0:36:00] Erik: Not saying that that doesn’t happen.
[0:36:01 – 0:36:01] Erik: Oh, it can happen.
[0:36:01 – 0:36:02] Erik: Yeah.
[0:36:02 – 0:36:10] Erik: But I’m saying like more often than not, you’re going to be seeing that like at the most, I would say that I’ve ever seen has been green.
[0:36:10 – 0:36:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:36:14 – 0:36:23] Erik: But almost every other time, outside of a couple extreme examples, has just been like beams of like white.
[0:36:24 – 0:36:28] Erik: Like somebody was basically like shooting a spotlight into the sky.
[0:36:28 – 0:36:32] Adam: It’s either like a whitish green to a slightly more eerie green.
[0:36:32 – 0:36:33] Adam: Yeah.
[0:36:33 – 0:36:34] Adam: Yeah.
[0:36:34 – 0:36:35] Adam: If that’s saying it right.
[0:36:36 – 0:36:37] Adam: Yeah, I think the one…
[0:36:38 – 0:36:45] Adam: And then you’ll occasionally, maybe you’ll get a little hint of like a reddish or a purplish to them, but that’s mostly shows up in the photography.
[0:36:45 – 0:36:48] Erik: It’s mostly on the, yeah, it’s mostly on the pictures.
[0:36:48 – 0:36:53] Erik: I’ve never actually seen anything besides maybe a darker green.
[0:36:53 – 0:36:57] Erik: I’ve never, I, I’ve never seen red or pink to the naked eye.
[0:36:58 – 0:36:59] Erik: I’ve definitely seen it come up.
[0:37:01 – 0:37:03] Erik: in like post with the pictures.
[0:37:05 – 0:37:18] Erik: And that’s just because that is like you just holding open your eye for 30 seconds and accepting everything and then blinking and then you get to see that versus everything coming through all at once.
[0:37:19 – 0:37:26] Erik: So the two, I think, most extreme examples of actually seeing green
[0:37:28 – 0:37:33] Erik: The one was that one, I think, with you and Deke out at Cabin 6.
[0:37:33 – 0:37:34] Adam: Home Deke.
[0:37:34 – 0:37:36] Adam: We are on the point there.
[0:37:36 – 0:37:38] Erik: Got some nice pictures from that night.
[0:37:38 – 0:37:39] Erik: That’s pretty cool.
[0:37:39 – 0:37:40] Erik: That was 2011.
[0:37:40 – 0:37:42] Erik: That was the peak summer.
[0:37:42 – 0:37:43] Erik: That was a crazy season.
[0:37:44 – 0:37:44] Adam: That was a good one.
[0:37:45 – 0:38:00] Erik: And then the last one that I remember that was an intense one, the farthest south and most extreme in terms of like shimmering and moving was the one on St. Patrick’s Day from I think it was four years ago now.
[0:38:03 – 0:38:07] Erik: The print that’s hanging above the front desk at Clearwater.
[0:38:07 – 0:38:13] Erik: So it’s been a quiet few years since then, but
[0:38:17 – 0:38:32] Adam: So yeah, it’s basically different kinds of oxygen and nitrogen at different elevations in the atmosphere that are causing the different reactions with these particles from the sun that give you the different colors.
[0:38:32 – 0:38:34] Adam: So I don’t know.
[0:38:34 – 0:38:36] Adam: I think we’ve explained it pretty reasonably.
[0:38:36 – 0:38:37] Erik: I think we’ve explained it.
[0:38:38 – 0:38:39] Erik: I think we’ve given some nice…
[0:38:40 – 0:38:45] Erik: baseline expectations if you’re coming up here.
[0:38:46 – 0:38:51] Erik: We will provide some links to Aurorasaurus.
[0:38:52 – 0:38:56] Erik: The other good source that we like to use in terms of…
[0:38:56 – 0:38:58] Erik: I think you can probably find…
[0:39:00 – 0:39:17] Erik: information on aurorasaurus i am more familiar with spaceweather.com oh yeah in terms of hey i’m in the area i know it’s supposed to be dark and clear tonight let’s get an idea on what’s going on in the skies it’s basically like going to weather.gov or weather.com or whatever and getting a
[0:39:18 – 0:39:37] Erik: an idea on what you can expect tonight tomorrow and the next day and there is a whole column on the left hand side that shows you the sun if there’s any sun spots any sun hurricanes no sun hurricanes we have been currently uh spotless for 22 days no hurricanes yeah um
[0:39:42 – 0:39:49] Erik: And then the other good thing that it does is tells you what the… A lot of cool, like, jewelry that’s flown into space.
[0:39:49 – 0:39:51] Adam: There’s a ton of ads on this website.
[0:39:51 – 0:39:56] Erik: You just disregard the flying of your personal property into space.
[0:39:56 – 0:39:59] Erik: But there’s a good KP index.
[0:40:00 – 0:40:01] Erik: That’s where I always look.
[0:40:01 – 0:40:04] Adam: I always look for that KP and then go to the more data.
[0:40:04 – 0:40:11] Adam: Yeah, to… We’ll pull up the little graph, the bar graph here of the KP data.
[0:40:11 – 0:40:16] Erik: Yeah, so the KP is, I think… That’s what we always look for.
[0:40:16 – 0:40:18] Erik: It is, but it’s kind of a…
[0:40:19 – 0:40:21] Erik: I don’t even know what kind of a scale you could…
[0:40:22 – 0:40:45] Erik: related to um it’s not like the richter scale or anything it basically is it it’s implying it’s not exponential no no it kind of implies like how far you could expect to see uh the auroras and there’s a nice little page longitudinal kind of click on and go into a nice little map here we have
[0:40:46 – 0:40:46] Erik: Yeah.
[0:40:46 – 0:40:53] Erik: And like, so typically where Northern Minnesota falls in is between the KP3 and 5 index.
[0:40:54 – 0:40:54] Erik: Yeah.
[0:40:54 – 0:40:56] Adam: As we said before, we’re looking for like a 4.
[0:40:57 – 0:40:59] Adam: If I see a KP4, I’m going to go take a peek.
[0:41:00 – 0:41:00] Erik: Yeah.
[0:41:00 – 0:41:01] Erik: Yeah.
[0:41:01 – 0:41:04] Erik: I mean, and then the couple of times that we were just referencing.
[0:41:05 – 0:41:07] Adam: Hell, if we get a 3, I’m going to go take a peek.
[0:41:07 – 0:41:09] Erik: Yeah.
[0:41:09 – 0:41:14] Erik: The big storms that I’ve seen in the past, they have been sevens or eights.
[0:41:14 – 0:41:23] Erik: The maximum is nine, which the line for that on the little map here is… What if you came out here and you looked and it was like KP20?
[0:41:24 – 0:41:43] Adam: kp22 while we were recording yeah i’m sure our electrocon electronical gear would not be working yeah this would none of this would be uh electronical recording at all yeah we’re you know come on we’re uh we’re a long night in recording electronical is a perfectly good term
[0:41:44 – 0:41:49] Erik: And then even below that, the KP scale, it’ll give you forecasts for flares.
[0:41:49 – 0:41:52] Adam: Ooh, yeah, flare forecast.
[0:41:52 – 0:41:53] Adam: You need the flares.
[0:41:54 – 0:42:05] Erik: Yeah, which the flare forecasts aren’t really that great during solar minimum because the flares essentially come from sunspots.
[0:42:06 – 0:42:15] Erik: So a lot of times when it’s at solar minimum, pretty much where we’re at, which is where we are at right now, you’re looking at solar winds.
[0:42:16 – 0:42:22] Erik: That’s really the only place that you’re going to get any activity from unless you get that rare sunspot, which…
[0:42:24 – 0:42:32] Erik: Last year, 2018, two-thirds of the days last year were spotless.
[0:42:33 – 0:42:36] Erik: The last time it was that low was 2009.
[0:42:36 – 0:42:42] Adam: As we said, it’s chill, but hopefully the sun just drops a single or something on us.
[0:42:42 – 0:42:43] Adam: A nice EP.
[0:42:44 – 0:42:44] Adam: Yeah.
[0:42:45 – 0:42:46] Adam: Hit us with something, son.
[0:42:47 – 0:42:49] Adam: We need a nice, we need the jam of the summer.
[0:42:49 – 0:42:55] Erik: Yeah, there’s even forecasts for magnetic storms at your latitude level.
[0:42:55 – 0:42:57] Adam: So a pretty good resource.
[0:42:57 – 0:43:00] Erik: I think the left side on space weather, that whole bar going down the left side.
[0:43:00 – 0:43:01] Erik: Just focus on the left side.
[0:43:02 – 0:43:03] Erik: It’s really good.
[0:43:03 – 0:43:08] Erik: And then from there, you can take a deep dive into any of the explanations into them.
[0:43:09 – 0:43:16] Erik: If you’re into noctilucent clouds, which I’m not that interested in, but they are kind of cool, you can look into that.
[0:43:17 – 0:43:18] Erik: It’s just a good resource.
[0:43:18 – 0:43:24] Erik: I think the most regular one that I use because it’s all in one place, but there’s tons of different ones out there.
[0:43:24 – 0:43:25] Erik: We’ll link to spaceweather.com.
[0:43:26 – 0:43:28] Adam: We’ll link to AuroraSaurus.
[0:43:28 – 0:43:30] Adam: Yeah, AuroraSaurus map is pretty sweet.
[0:43:32 – 0:43:39] Adam: I have been having a little bit of an issue trying to get the app to load the maps right on my phone, but I don’t know.
[0:43:39 – 0:43:41] Adam: It might be something with my data settings.
[0:43:42 – 0:43:42] Adam: I’m not quite sure.
[0:43:43 – 0:44:07] Adam: megan vouches for the aurorasaurus she says it’s run by good people and from what we’ve seen their information’s very nicely um organized and clear so pretty good uh source of information there and if you sign up through them it looks like you can like report whether or not you see them it’s kind of like on weather underground where you can be like yeah it’s raining
[0:44:07 – 0:44:08] Adam: No, it’s not.
[0:44:08 – 0:44:09] Erik: Oh, your own weather station?
[0:44:09 – 0:44:12] Adam: Yeah, you’re kind of helping out with the forecast on your own right.
[0:44:12 – 0:44:13] Adam: So that’s kind of neat.
[0:44:13 – 0:44:16] Adam: It’s a little more interactive than space weather.
[0:44:16 – 0:44:18] Adam: But I grew up on space weather.
[0:44:18 – 0:44:20] Adam: Megan’s getting me into Aurorasaurus.
[0:44:20 – 0:44:21] Adam: They’re both good.
[0:44:21 – 0:44:23] Adam: So there’s some other stuff you can follow.
[0:44:25 – 0:44:32] Adam: Pretty much if you know the KP is going to be up, you’re going to hear about it if you’ve been following and checking and bookmarking the right spots.
[0:44:32 – 0:44:39] Erik: Yeah, there’s a bunch of groups on Facebook too, like Great Lakes Aurora Hunters and stuff like that you can group into, but…
[0:44:39 – 0:45:03] Erik: it’s one of those things that yeah like if you live up here like in it’s gonna be a chance in northern lights like you’re gonna hear about it from somebody you’re at all connected yeah i unfortunately throughout the summer i’ve seen so many great displays and i’m not like i’m not like trying to brag or anything but it’s really hard for me to get excited in like june or even if it’s like
[0:45:03 – 0:45:04] Erik: Man, there’s a storm.
[0:45:04 – 0:45:06] Erik: It’s definitely rolling over.
[0:45:06 – 0:45:09] Erik: It should be here at about 2 o’clock in the morning.
[0:45:09 – 0:45:12] Erik: I’m like, oh, man, I don’t know.
[0:45:13 – 0:45:15] Erik: Half the time I just can’t.
[0:45:15 – 0:45:16] Erik: I just got to go to bed and I sleep.
[0:45:17 – 0:45:19] Adam: I’ll set an alarm for it.
[0:45:19 – 0:45:20] Adam: Yeah, no.
[0:45:21 – 0:45:24] Adam: Once you go to bed, you’re not getting back up unless you’re really dedicated.
[0:45:24 – 0:45:25] Adam: Maybe we’re spoiled.
[0:45:25 – 0:45:26] Erik: Yeah, there is.
[0:45:27 – 0:45:27] Erik: Maybe that’s it.
[0:45:27 – 0:45:28] Erik: I’m not bragging.
[0:45:28 – 0:45:29] Erik: I’m just saying we are spoiled.
[0:45:30 – 0:45:31] Adam: And you never have seen them.
[0:45:32 – 0:45:34] Adam: And you’re up here and they’re like, you’re going to be able to.
[0:45:34 – 0:45:36] Adam: You’d be out there, too, for sure.
[0:45:36 – 0:45:37] Erik: Yes, for sure.
[0:45:37 – 0:45:37] Adam: So.
[0:45:38 – 0:45:40] Adam: Anyways, there is a possibility you can see them here.
[0:45:41 – 0:45:46] Adam: Much better chance to see them up here than even in Duluth or definitely the Twin Cities.
[0:45:46 – 0:45:47] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:45:47 – 0:45:51] Erik: I mean, just in terms of… Yeah, every step south you take.
[0:45:51 – 0:45:56] Erik: In terms of latitude, but more than anything else, it is the dark skies.
[0:45:57 – 0:45:57] Erik: Yes, that’s the key.
[0:45:57 – 0:46:09] Erik: Some of the darkest skies, you know, even on the Gunflint Trail, you know, the farther you head in up into Quetico or even west into the Boundary Waters, the darker it’s going to get.
[0:46:09 – 0:46:16] Erik: The biggest thing that we are affected by, kind of in the Vento unit, Clearwater area, is that it’s faint.
[0:46:16 – 0:46:17] Erik: It doesn’t really affect.
[0:46:18 – 0:46:20] Erik: But if you’re taking pictures, you will see it.
[0:46:20 – 0:46:21] Erik: And that’s Thunder Bay.
[0:46:21 – 0:46:22] Erik: Thunder Bay.
[0:46:22 – 0:46:25] Erik: Get a little bit of that orange haze off in the distance.
[0:46:26 – 0:46:26] Erik: So…
[0:46:27 – 0:46:32] Erik: And with that, I think we can maybe transition into the last thing that we’re going to talk about.
[0:46:32 – 0:46:35] Erik: And that is if you want to try to take pictures.
[0:46:36 – 0:46:42] Erik: And I’m not going off of anything here except for my own personal experience with taking pictures.
[0:46:43 – 0:46:50] Erik: And there’s a few rules that if you stick to, pretty easy to get some decent pictures.
[0:46:52 – 0:46:55] Erik: And the biggest one is…
[0:46:56 – 0:46:57] Erik: You need to get a tripod.
[0:46:58 – 0:46:59] Erik: Number one.
[0:46:59 – 0:46:59] Erik: Number one.
[0:46:59 – 0:47:01] Erik: Get a tripod.
[0:47:01 – 0:47:05] Erik: Tripod or you have to put your camera on something.
[0:47:06 – 0:47:09] Adam: I’ve done one where I just had it like on the hood of my truck.
[0:47:09 – 0:47:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:47:10 – 0:47:11] Adam: Parked on the road.
[0:47:11 – 0:47:12] Adam: You don’t get as much.
[0:47:12 – 0:47:13] Erik: So it’s sort of crooked.
[0:47:13 – 0:47:14] Erik: Yeah.
[0:47:14 – 0:47:16] Adam: But it was like, it’s all I had and they were out.
[0:47:17 – 0:47:19] Adam: So yeah, you don’t get as much play with that.
[0:47:19 – 0:47:22] Adam: But it wasn’t as good, but it worked.
[0:47:22 – 0:47:28] Erik: You’re not going to get a really good picture of the Aurora by holding a camera in your hand.
[0:47:29 – 0:47:30] Adam: You just won’t.
[0:47:30 – 0:47:32] Erik: You’re not, you know, you try to hold it as still as you want.
[0:47:33 – 0:47:34] Erik: You’re going to maybe see some green.
[0:47:34 – 0:47:38] Adam: You ever try and take a picture of the moon, which is a large target.
[0:47:38 – 0:47:41] Adam: It’s hard to even get a good picture of the moon, but with a hand.
[0:47:42 – 0:47:47] Erik: The moon is a, yeah, that’s a completely different concept of trying to take a picture of.
[0:47:48 – 0:47:52] Erik: Which I still struggle with the idea on.
[0:47:52 – 0:47:53] Erik: That’s a whole different topic, though.
[0:47:53 – 0:47:54] Adam: It is.
[0:47:54 – 0:47:57] Adam: I’m just saying, like, get a tripod.
[0:47:58 – 0:47:58] Adam: Get a tripod.
[0:47:58 – 0:48:02] Adam: The human hand is not still enough for the amount of time exposure you need.
[0:48:03 – 0:48:04] Erik: For the aurora.
[0:48:05 – 0:48:06] Erik: And you need a tripod for the moon.
[0:48:07 – 0:48:11] Erik: Unless it’s one of those rare days where the moon rises as the sun is setting.
[0:48:12 – 0:48:14] Erik: Those are the best days to take pictures of the full moon.
[0:48:14 – 0:48:16] Erik: Because then you get the light of the landscape…
[0:48:17 – 0:48:18] Erik: Along with the light of the moon.
[0:48:19 – 0:48:20] Adam: Which needs exposure time.
[0:48:20 – 0:48:21] Erik: Yes.
[0:48:21 – 0:48:23] Adam: You’re not just taking a little click.
[0:48:23 – 0:48:25] Adam: You need to… And leave it.
[0:48:25 – 0:48:26] Adam: Yeah.
[0:48:26 – 0:48:27] Adam: And then close it.
[0:48:27 – 0:48:31] Adam: And that’s the time in between is what’s letting the…
[0:48:32 – 0:48:34] Adam: The amount of light in that you need to get what you need.
[0:48:34 – 0:48:34] Adam: Am I right?
[0:48:35 – 0:48:35] Erik: You’re right.
[0:48:35 – 0:48:36] Erik: Yeah, no.
[0:48:36 – 0:48:40] Erik: So just like, I don’t know if we’ve ever really talked about photography.
[0:48:40 – 0:48:41] Erik: We haven’t.
[0:48:41 – 0:48:46] Erik: In depth at all, but I think it really bears stating here.
[0:48:46 – 0:48:57] Erik: Like I’ve, over the years, gotten pretty comfortable with my camera and taken pretty decent pictures of the Aurora, if I do say so myself.
[0:48:57 – 0:48:57] Erik: You have.
[0:48:57 – 0:48:59] Erik: It’s been a learning process.
[0:49:00 – 0:49:01] Adam: You’ve taught me a lot about it.
[0:49:02 – 0:49:18] Erik: I think the biggest thing to know is that outside of a tripod is that once you have that tripod, your camera, basically it’s everything that you put into it is an equation and everything is going to affect everything else.
[0:49:18 – 0:49:32] Erik: So what you’re looking for is something that captures the aurora without overexposing and also maintaining an actually decent image quality.
[0:49:33 – 0:49:39] Erik: And the three things that go into that equation are aperture, exposure, and ISO.
[0:49:40 – 0:49:40] Erik: So…
[0:49:41 – 0:49:44] Erik: Aperture is the size of the hole in your lens.
[0:49:44 – 0:49:47] Erik: Exposure is how long the hole stays open.
[0:49:47 – 0:49:52] Erik: And ISO is the sensitivity of the film.
[0:49:54 – 0:49:59] Erik: Now, with the development of digital cameras, that sensitivity can be adjusted on the fly.
[0:49:59 – 0:50:03] Erik: That used to be a thing that you had to buy different rolls of film.
[0:50:03 – 0:50:04] Adam: Different film?
[0:50:04 – 0:50:04] Adam: Yeah.
[0:50:04 – 0:50:05] Adam: Was the ISO?
[0:50:06 – 0:50:06] Adam: Mm-hmm.
[0:50:08 – 0:50:11] Adam: I thought it was always done in the film room for some reason, but it’s different films.
[0:50:13 – 0:50:33] Erik: Well, it may have been different with actually the black room, the dark room or whatever, but the in-between stages where there was the cameras that had the little roll of film that you could just plug in and then take 24 pictures and then bring to Target or whatever.
[0:50:33 – 0:50:34] Adam: Yeah, you can’t take it out in the middle of the roll.
[0:50:35 – 0:50:36] Erik: You can’t take it out in the middle of the roll.
[0:50:36 – 0:50:40] Erik: So you got 24 pictures where you’re taking shots at 800 ISO.
[0:50:40 – 0:50:47] Adam: People listening to this 100 years from now are not going to have an understanding of what these little rolls of 35 millimeter film are like.
[0:50:48 – 0:50:50] Erik: We’re already like 20 years removed from that.
[0:50:50 – 0:50:51] Erik: There’s probably people listening now.
[0:50:51 – 0:50:52] Erik: They’re like, wait, what?
[0:50:53 – 0:50:55] Erik: There used to be different ISOs of film.
[0:50:55 – 0:50:55] Erik: Yeah.
[0:50:56 – 0:51:09] Erik: So, like, that is, like, been the greatest improvement and step forward in photography is the ability to adjust the ISO of your film.
[0:51:09 – 0:51:10] Erik: Huh.
[0:51:10 – 0:51:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:51:10 – 0:51:20] Erik: Like, that’s the biggest difference between film and digital is being able to just quickly, based on what kind of pictures you’re taking, quickly switch that.
[0:51:20 – 0:51:20] Adam: Yeah.
[0:51:21 – 0:51:21] Adam: So…
[0:51:21 – 0:51:32] Adam: I always felt like, and I think you told me this, just like when you’re shooting digital, shoot wide open as much ISO as possible, and then just change the duration, the exposure.
[0:51:32 – 0:51:39] Erik: So basically, we haven’t really described what the ISO is, and it’s an acronym for like international standard something.
[0:51:40 – 0:51:44] Erik: It’s very boring, but basically it’s the sensitivity of the film.
[0:51:44 – 0:51:48] Erik: So the lower the number, the less sensitive it is,
[0:51:49 – 0:51:54] Erik: but the more crisp your pictures are going to be.
[0:51:55 – 0:52:03] Erik: So I always tend to try and set the ISO as low as possible because you get…
[0:52:04 – 0:52:17] Erik: less noise, the higher you go in ISO, the more that, let’s just say, regardless of it’s digital or film, the more that film is just craving for light.
[0:52:18 – 0:52:22] Erik: So if it’s super high ISO, it’s going to pull in all this random extraneous stuff.
[0:52:22 – 0:52:29] Erik: So you get a ton of noise and blips and like anomalies and weird things that
[0:52:29 – 0:52:30] Erik: Oh, okay.
[0:52:30 – 0:52:34] Erik: Yeah, you can adjust in post to kind of smooth that out.
[0:52:35 – 0:52:42] Erik: But the lower you can work on the level of your ISO, the crisper the photo is going to be, the more vibrant it’s going to be.
[0:52:43 – 0:52:47] Erik: And even sometimes during the day, if you just like…
[0:52:47 – 0:52:48] Erik: Here’s a real secret.
[0:52:48 – 0:52:56] Erik: Have you ever looked at anybody on Instagram and you just see like, man, how are they getting those pictures where they’re just like insanely like…
[0:52:56 – 0:52:58] Erik: just crisp, vibrant.
[0:52:58 – 0:53:05] Erik: They’re setting up tripods even during the day and cranking down that ISO to the lowest level.
[0:53:05 – 0:53:07] Erik: Reverse.
[0:53:07 – 0:53:13] Erik: And opening up their, and then cranking down their aperture to like 22, so it’s a pinhole.
[0:53:14 – 0:53:17] Erik: And then like doing a long exposure.
[0:53:17 – 0:53:24] Erik: So it’s just taking in like a ton of light and just like, just flushing this film with like
[0:53:25 – 0:53:35] Erik: So that’s how you get those like really like all the light over the course of like five seconds even, even in broad daylight sometimes can make a big difference.
[0:53:36 – 0:53:39] Erik: In terms of taking pictures of auroras, you can’t go that low.
[0:53:39 – 0:53:43] Erik: Like you really are limited to, I would say about 800 ISO.
[0:53:43 – 0:53:43] Erik: Yeah.
[0:53:46 – 0:53:57] Erik: And you’re still going to want your aperture to be pretty much wide open, which apertures range anywhere depending on the lens from like 1.4 to 22.
[0:53:58 – 0:54:01] Erik: And of course, just to make things confusing, it’s reversed.
[0:54:02 – 0:54:05] Erik: So the smaller the number, the larger the aperture.
[0:54:07 – 0:54:10] Erik: And so in terms of taking pictures of Aurora…
[0:54:10 – 0:54:11] Adam: So you want the pupil dilated, right?
[0:54:12 – 0:54:12] Erik: Yeah, yeah.
[0:54:13 – 0:54:18] Erik: So you’re going to want that to be gathering as much light as possible.
[0:54:19 – 0:54:30] Erik: So I always just crank open that aperture, set the ISO at about 800, and I always just kind of start at like 20 to 30 seconds in terms of an exposure.
[0:54:31 – 0:54:43] Erik: And the other thing that I haven’t mentioned so far, which isn’t necessary, but is greatly advantageous, is a digital SLR camera with a wide angle lens.
[0:54:44 – 0:54:45] Erik: Because…
[0:54:46 – 0:54:50] Erik: The wide-angle lens will allow you to grab as much of the sky as possible.
[0:54:51 – 0:55:00] Erik: And when you’re taking pictures of the aurora, if you’ve ever seen them with your naked eye, you know how grand it is.
[0:55:00 – 0:55:08] Erik: And even with the widest of wide-angle lenses, you still feel like you’re missing out on what’s happening above you.
[0:55:09 – 0:55:13] Erik: So trying to capture that with anything under like 20mm…
[0:55:15 – 0:55:18] Erik: or anything above that, can be really hard.
[0:55:19 – 0:55:23] Erik: And then you’re also then working against trying to focus on that.
[0:55:24 – 0:55:27] Adam: Do you ever use any sorts of filters on the lens itself?
[0:55:27 – 0:55:28] Adam: No.
[0:55:28 – 0:55:28] Adam: At night?
[0:55:28 – 0:55:29] Erik: No, definitely not.
[0:55:30 – 0:55:32] Erik: I mean, nothing…
[0:55:33 – 0:55:36] Erik: I can’t think of any filter that would be advantageous to taking a picture at night.
[0:55:37 – 0:55:37] Erik: Right on.
[0:55:38 – 0:55:38] Erik: So…
[0:55:39 – 0:55:47] Adam: I know you’ve done a lot of drone stuff, and drones are getting more and more stable with our gyroscope technology.
[0:55:47 – 0:55:51] Erik: I have seen settings on the drone that allows for a long exposure.
[0:55:51 – 0:55:53] Adam: Do you think a drone could be as stable as a tripod?
[0:55:53 – 0:55:57] Erik: If it was dead calm, maybe, but I don’t know.
[0:55:58 – 0:56:01] Erik: I mean, that would be cool to see if somebody could do it.
[0:56:02 – 0:56:12] Erik: And there’s all kinds of different forms of doing long exposures slash time lapses where you build and you can see like an hour of the aurora moving.
[0:56:12 – 0:56:13] Erik: Yeah.
[0:56:13 – 0:56:15] Erik: I just can’t imagine like what, you know.
[0:56:15 – 0:56:23] Erik: Christian Birkeland and those guys would have thought if they could see what we’re doing now with… Yeah, if Birkeland had your camera setups.
[0:56:23 – 0:56:23] Erik: Yeah.
[0:56:24 – 0:56:25] Erik: And I’m just a dummy.
[0:56:26 – 0:56:27] Erik: No.
[0:56:27 – 0:56:43] Erik: So just to boil it down, if you want to take a decent picture of the Aurora, tripod, hopefully a digital SLR camera with like an 11 to 16 millimeter lens all the way like pulled back to 11 millimeters.
[0:56:43 – 0:56:43] Erik: Yeah.
[0:56:44 – 0:56:52] Erik: 800 ISO, as wide open as it goes, and probably about a 30-second exposure.
[0:56:53 – 0:57:02] Erik: And then in terms of focus, the other thing is just turn on manual focus and flip it all the way to infinity because that’s what you’re taking a picture of.
[0:57:03 – 0:57:12] Adam: And you’re also going to want to, just for good luck, you’re going to want to clip a few of your fingernails, and then when you get to your destination, throw them at Polaris.
[0:57:13 – 0:57:13] Erik: Mm-hmm.
[0:57:14 – 0:57:14] Erik: Yeah.
[0:57:15 – 0:57:18] Adam: Flick them up there as hard as you can just for good luck.
[0:57:20 – 0:57:23] Erik: And that is the God’s truth.
[0:57:24 – 0:57:27] Erik: So I don’t even know where we’re at now.
[0:57:27 – 0:57:28] Erik: I think we’re over an hour.
[0:57:29 – 0:57:31] Erik: We’re about right at about an hour.
[0:57:31 – 0:57:31] Adam: Closing in.
[0:57:32 – 0:57:32] Adam: Yeah.
[0:57:32 – 0:57:34] Adam: Let me get another sip of this Alaskan.
[0:57:34 – 0:57:35] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know.
[0:57:35 – 0:57:39] Erik: I feel like I could talk about taking pictures forever.
[0:57:40 – 0:57:43] Erik: We should do a photography episode, though, you know.
[0:57:43 – 0:57:44] Adam: Absolutely.
[0:57:44 – 0:57:47] Adam: I don’t know anything about it, but I like watching you take pictures.
[0:57:47 – 0:57:48] Adam: Depth of field.
[0:57:48 – 0:57:49] Adam: Being in your pictures.
[0:57:49 – 0:57:50] Adam: That’s my greatest asset.
[0:57:51 – 0:57:53] Adam: Getting the water to move.
[0:57:53 – 0:57:55] Adam: Looking interested in something.
[0:57:55 – 0:57:56] Adam: Looking far off.
[0:57:58 – 0:57:58] Adam: Pointing.
[0:57:59 – 0:58:00] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know.
[0:58:00 – 0:58:05] Erik: I mean, I’m sure we’re still missing something, but dang, we’ve talked for about three hours on the Northern Lights.
[0:58:06 – 0:58:11] Erik: And if there’s, I mean, what else is there to talk this long about up here?
[0:58:11 – 0:58:14] Erik: I think it’s one of the things I’m most fascinated about.
[0:58:15 – 0:58:22] Adam: Yeah, I’m fascinated by them, and the more I learn about them, the more I am fascinated by them.
[0:58:22 – 0:58:30] Erik: Yeah, I mean, I’m jealous in one hand of your sister, who was able to…
[0:58:31 – 0:58:32] Erik: Does she still work in that field?
[0:58:33 – 0:58:34] Erik: No, no.
[0:58:34 – 0:58:36] Adam: She’s no longer in the field, but…
[0:58:36 – 0:58:46] Erik: I mean, that’s like one thing where it’s like, you know, as you learn and you grow and you’re like, man, I really find this to be incredibly interesting.
[0:58:48 – 0:58:53] Erik: I’ve missed out on the opportunity to really like dive deep into it in a real way.
[0:58:53 – 0:59:01] Erik: You can read, but to be able to travel to like Sweden or Norway and spend a few years shooting rockets up into them.
[0:59:01 – 0:59:02] Erik: I mean, that’s amazing.
[0:59:02 – 0:59:03] Adam: Yeah, it’s pretty wild.
[0:59:04 – 0:59:04] Erik: Yeah.
[0:59:05 – 0:59:19] Adam: And, you know, she didn’t want to, like, be on a record, and she’s been a wealth of information over my years, like, trying to explain to me, but I’ll never understand the Northern Lights in the way that Megan understands them.
[0:59:19 – 0:59:21] Erik: Yeah, we’re scratching the surface.
[0:59:21 – 0:59:29] Adam: Yeah, and I’m sure when she listens to this, it’s going to be cringeworthy, the amount of misstatements and falsehoods we’ve perpetrated here.
[0:59:29 – 0:59:34] Adam: But I think overall, we’ve gave a pretty good broad picture of what we’re discussing.
[0:59:35 – 0:59:39] Erik: I think it’s a nice intro.
[0:59:39 – 0:59:41] Adam: Yeah, it’s an intro.
[0:59:42 – 0:59:44] Erik: Yeah, a very shallow intro.
[0:59:44 – 0:59:47] Adam: You can come up here and see the Northern Lights.
[0:59:48 – 0:59:53] Adam: A lot of people see them on the drive up 61 or going up 53 towards Ely.
[0:59:54 – 0:59:57] Erik: You can see them anywhere at any time, any time of the year.
[0:59:57 – 0:59:58] Adam: You never know.
[0:59:58 – 0:59:59] Adam: They’re going to surprise you.
[0:59:59 – 0:59:59] Erik: Yep.
[1:00:00 – 1:00:05] Adam: But, you know, we can’t ever guarantee, like, hey, when can I come up and see them?
[1:00:05 – 1:00:09] Adam: You can’t just come up and, you know, yeah, come up on May 15th, you’ll see them.
[1:00:10 – 1:00:10] Adam: No.
[1:00:10 – 1:00:12] Adam: Come up on a new moon and you’ll see them.
[1:00:12 – 1:00:12] Adam: No.
[1:00:13 – 1:00:14] Adam: But, yeah, better.
[1:00:15 – 1:00:20] Adam: Come up on a new moon, hope you get clear weather, and then stay up late.
[1:00:21 – 1:00:30] Erik: Yeah, I mean, and I think in this episode, we have kind of come across as, like, speaking down a little bit.
[1:00:30 – 1:00:35] Erik: But I think it’s just to try to, like, it’s not based on us thinking anybody’s, like, stupid about it.
[1:00:36 – 1:00:39] Erik: I think it’s just based on, like, the questions that we get.
[1:00:39 – 1:00:43] Erik: And a lot of them are, I’m going to come up and see the Northern Lights, right?
[1:00:44 – 1:00:44] Erik: Mm-hmm.
[1:00:45 – 1:00:46] Erik: It’s like, no, I mean…
[1:00:47 – 1:00:49] Erik: And that’s not necessarily…
[1:00:49 – 1:00:49] Erik: I hope you will.
[1:00:49 – 1:00:50] Erik: I hope you will.
[1:00:50 – 1:00:52] Erik: That’s not necessarily their fault.
[1:00:52 – 1:00:53] Erik: I hope I see them.
[1:00:54 – 1:00:54] Erik: I think it is…
[1:00:56 – 1:01:18] Erik: like we’ve talked about this in the past the just the world we live in with the those are the images that get people excited and i’m just as much to blame about it you know the the social media stuff post some pictures of northern lights northern lights and moose i mean you post those and it’s just like auto points auto likes and auto points
[1:01:19 – 1:01:41] Erik: and it’s there neither of them are guarantees we do fortunately live in a place where it’s a little bit more likely than other places but there’s not moose running around in the northern lights up here every night of the winter not every night you can every couple nights if that’s a picture that somebody could get i see see the lights
[1:01:41 – 1:02:02] Adam: a moose galloping under the northern lights nace i’m sure has that i’m sure shout out to nace yeah thanks for listening um yeah i don’t know we want to like wrap up with what are you like some of your favorite memories of seeing the northern lights um
[1:02:04 – 1:02:08] Erik: Well, the one that we talked about already out on the point, Cabin 5 and 6.
[1:02:08 – 1:02:09] Erik: 2011, yeah.
[1:02:09 – 1:02:10] Erik: That was pretty amazing.
[1:02:10 – 1:02:11] Erik: I moved back up.
[1:02:11 – 1:02:12] Erik: First summer that we had met.
[1:02:13 – 1:02:14] Adam: Yeah, that was incredible.
[1:02:15 – 1:02:16] Adam: That was one of those ones.
[1:02:17 – 1:02:21] Adam: We were like a couple weeks away from getting ready for our first Quetico trip there.
[1:02:21 – 1:02:34] Erik: Yeah, and I think the reason that that one was so memorable is because it was one of those summers where we were convinced that spaceweather.com was just like infallible.
[1:02:34 – 1:02:38] Erik: So we’d see KP6, 5, 7, whatever, and we’d stay up.
[1:02:38 – 1:02:39] Erik: We’re going out.
[1:02:39 – 1:02:46] Erik: One night we went out and we sat up at the top of the Palisades because we were convinced there was going to be good Northern Lights.
[1:02:46 – 1:02:47] Erik: Nothing.
[1:02:47 – 1:02:49] Adam: It was a summer of disappointment.
[1:02:49 – 1:02:49] Erik: Yeah.
[1:02:49 – 1:02:51] Erik: And that’s the that’s the fickleness.
[1:02:52 – 1:02:52] Erik: Yeah.
[1:02:52 – 1:02:56] Erik: Even if you’re using space weather, it gives you a little bit more of a chance.
[1:02:56 – 1:02:57] Erik: It does.
[1:02:57 – 1:02:58] Erik: It gives you a slight edge.
[1:02:58 – 1:03:01] Erik: So finally, when that big storm at the end of it was everybody else had gone.
[1:03:02 – 1:03:03] Erik: It was September.
[1:03:03 – 1:03:03] Adam: Yeah.
[1:03:03 – 1:03:04] Adam: We’re pretty late in the season.
[1:03:05 – 1:03:09] Erik: And we walked out onto this cabin that, you know, is typically occupied by guests.
[1:03:09 – 1:03:12] Erik: We had the whole point to ourselves for like two hours.
[1:03:12 – 1:03:16] Erik: We just watched them slowly build, coming in off the horizon.
[1:03:16 – 1:03:27] Erik: Basically just this, it was like the beginning of Independence Day where this like huge green disc just kind of started moving towards us.
[1:03:28 – 1:03:30] Erik: And then all of a sudden it was just on top of us.
[1:03:30 – 1:03:34] Erik: And it was crazy for an hour and a half, two hours.
[1:03:34 – 1:03:37] Adam: That was absolutely the greatest show I’ve seen.
[1:03:37 – 1:03:38] Adam: Yeah.
[1:03:38 – 1:03:42] Adam: I think in August of that year, too, it was on Deke’s birthday.
[1:03:43 – 1:03:47] Adam: And we went down to the, at the time, it was the Wendigo.
[1:03:48 – 1:03:50] Adam: And remember, we were on the back porch of the Wendigo.
[1:03:51 – 1:03:51] Adam: Yeah.
[1:03:53 – 1:03:55] Adam: It was like early August, I believe.
[1:03:55 – 1:03:58] Adam: August 5th is Deke’s birthday.
[1:03:58 – 1:04:02] Adam: Deke, call the hotline and fact check us on that one.
[1:04:02 – 1:04:03] Adam: When is your birthday?
[1:04:03 – 1:04:07] Adam: We were on the south side, like looking south and could see them.
[1:04:08 – 1:04:09] Adam: And that was all still 2011.
[1:04:09 – 1:04:09] Adam: Yeah.
[1:04:11 – 1:04:11] Adam: That was…
[1:04:11 – 1:04:14] Adam: I’ve never seen northern lights in the south.
[1:04:14 – 1:04:21] Adam: That was probably one of the wildest storms, but I think the one in September you were referring to earlier was like the most intense.
[1:04:21 – 1:04:27] Erik: Most intense and visible because I also remember that same year was the one night where…
[1:04:29 – 1:04:32] Erik: They were supposed to be very intense, but it was cloudy.
[1:04:33 – 1:04:36] Erik: So he pulled out the camera and just shot it up at the clouds.
[1:04:36 – 1:04:37] Erik: Yeah.
[1:04:37 – 1:04:40] Adam: And the whole picture was just green.
[1:04:40 – 1:04:41] Adam: Yeah, green clouds.
[1:04:41 – 1:04:42] Adam: Green clouds.
[1:04:42 – 1:04:44] Adam: It was coming through the clouds.
[1:04:44 – 1:04:50] Erik: So we still went down to the waterfront and got some really crazy weird pictures of like green clouds.
[1:04:50 – 1:04:51] Erik: Yeah.
[1:04:51 – 1:04:55] Erik: It was like on one hand, super disappointing, but on the other, like pretty cool.
[1:04:55 – 1:04:57] Erik: This is all still happening right now.
[1:04:58 – 1:05:01] Erik: And yeah, that was an intense summer.
[1:05:01 – 1:05:09] Erik: I think the only other night that might beat it was the one a few years ago on St. Patrick’s day in, uh,
[1:05:10 – 1:05:12] Erik: That was also down at the waterfront.
[1:05:12 – 1:05:17] Erik: The biggest detractor from that was that I experienced it alone.
[1:05:18 – 1:05:22] Erik: And that’s a huge part of the Aurora is like anything.
[1:05:22 – 1:05:29] Erik: If you can’t experience it with somebody else, you’re just like, I remember like I was down at the waterfront and the snow was green.
[1:05:29 – 1:05:33] Erik: It was just like curling and twisting like a snake directly above my head.
[1:05:34 – 1:05:45] Erik: And I’m just like, I was like yelling and laughing out loud and like in hopes that somebody, anybody, I knew nobody would, would just like appear and be like, Hey, I’m also seeing this.
[1:05:45 – 1:05:46] Erik: But it was, no, it was just me.
[1:05:46 – 1:05:49] Erik: Tori was babysitting.
[1:05:50 – 1:05:53] Erik: She did see them at the same time, but we weren’t together.
[1:05:53 – 1:05:54] Erik: I wasn’t with anybody else.
[1:05:54 – 1:05:56] Erik: But in terms of the overall display, um,
[1:05:57 – 1:05:59] Erik: That was by far the most insane.
[1:05:59 – 1:06:03] Erik: And I think it probably had a lot to do with it reflecting off of the snow.
[1:06:03 – 1:06:05] Adam: Yeah.
[1:06:06 – 1:06:08] Erik: Those are my two most memorable ones.
[1:06:09 – 1:06:10] Erik: Those are all good.
[1:06:10 – 1:06:19] Adam: I gotta give a shout out to the Friday the 13th Aurora from two years ago now.
[1:06:21 – 1:06:24] Adam: And we were living here already at that point and
[1:06:25 – 1:06:30] Adam: like Natalie was working late and I could see like the KP was nuts and it was clear out.
[1:06:30 – 1:06:34] Adam: And like, so all the factors are lined up and, uh,
[1:06:35 – 1:06:41] Adam: So she was on her way home and she could see them driving on 61 and she called and she was like, they’re out.
[1:06:41 – 1:06:42] Adam: We got to go see them.
[1:06:42 – 1:06:43] Adam: I was like, yeah, let’s go.
[1:06:43 – 1:06:44] Adam: We’re going to go up to the lake.
[1:06:44 – 1:06:47] Adam: We got a little lake just north of here with a beautiful view.
[1:06:47 – 1:06:57] Adam: And so we went up there and sure enough, they were kind of just a little bit when we arrived and we sat down and we’re kind of watching and
[1:06:58 – 1:07:02] Adam: they like all of a sudden just sparked up like this, just like something was lit.
[1:07:03 – 1:07:09] Adam: Hey, you’ve seen this before watching them where you’re kind of just, they’re simmering and then they, they just go.
[1:07:09 – 1:07:10] Erik: Oh, they’re fickle.
[1:07:10 – 1:07:15] Erik: You’d be like at one spot where you’re like, I think we can get a better view if we drive over here.
[1:07:15 – 1:07:17] Erik: And then you drive over there and they’re just gone.
[1:07:18 – 1:07:19] Erik: Yeah.
[1:07:19 – 1:07:19] Erik: Shouldn’t have moved.
[1:07:20 – 1:07:20] Erik: Yeah.
[1:07:20 – 1:07:20] Adam: Shouldn’t have moved.
[1:07:21 – 1:07:21] Adam: But, uh,
[1:07:22 – 1:07:25] Adam: Yeah, no, it was just one of those nights where it was incredible.
[1:07:25 – 1:07:33] Adam: It wasn’t like the greatest Northern Lights I’ve ever seen, but we were together, and then that was the night that we got engaged.
[1:07:33 – 1:07:34] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[1:07:34 – 1:07:36] Adam: I had a ring, but I didn’t have it with me.
[1:07:37 – 1:07:37] Adam: I should have.
[1:07:37 – 1:07:39] Adam: I was ill-prepared, but…
[1:07:40 – 1:07:44] Adam: So I was moved by the Northern Lights.
[1:07:44 – 1:07:45] Adam: It was like, this is the right moment.
[1:07:45 – 1:07:47] Adam: You’re never going to have a better moment than this.
[1:07:48 – 1:07:51] Adam: Not planned, but planned in my mind.
[1:07:51 – 1:07:57] Adam: Like I was kind of ready for a night like that, but just not knowing that it was going to be that night until the moment.
[1:07:58 – 1:07:59] Erik: I think there’s some beauty in that.
[1:08:00 – 1:08:00] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[1:08:00 – 1:08:02] Adam: We always will have that story.
[1:08:03 – 1:08:07] Adam: And so I couldn’t let this Northern Light episode go by without telling that story.
[1:08:07 – 1:08:10] Adam: Once again, I am sure I’ve mentioned it before to you.
[1:08:11 – 1:08:16] Erik: Oh, I mean, I knew about it, but I was like, I wasn’t piecing it together.
[1:08:16 – 1:08:19] SPEAKER_02: When you were telling me that, I was like, I don’t think I remember.
[1:08:20 – 1:08:21] SPEAKER_02: Where did you meet?
[1:08:21 – 1:08:23] Erik: Because you didn’t say what lake it was, but now I know what you’re talking about.
[1:08:23 – 1:08:25] Erik: And yes, that’s…
[1:08:25 – 1:08:26] Adam: It was super late.
[1:08:26 – 1:08:26] Adam: We got back.
[1:08:26 – 1:08:27] Adam: We were like, we should tell our family.
[1:08:27 – 1:08:30] Adam: It was like after midnight by the time we got back.
[1:08:30 – 1:08:30] Adam: Yeah.
[1:08:31 – 1:08:34] Adam: Especially her family is in the Eastern times.
[1:08:36 – 1:08:37] Adam: Super, super late.
[1:08:37 – 1:08:39] Adam: Anyways, it was a really…
[1:08:40 – 1:08:41] Adam: I’ll never forget that night.
[1:08:41 – 1:08:42] Erik: No, I can’t imagine.
[1:08:42 – 1:08:46] Erik: I’ll never forget the night that I proposed to Tori in front of a salt and pepper factory.
[1:08:46 – 1:08:48] Erik: But, you know, tomato, tomato.
[1:08:49 – 1:08:50] Adam: That’s romantic.
[1:08:51 – 1:08:52] Adam: Yeah.
[1:08:52 – 1:08:53] Erik: It actually was.
[1:08:53 – 1:09:05] Erik: But if you’re like, there’s no way… You could tell yours in the most Hemingway-esque way possible, just straight up black and white, dumbed down.
[1:09:05 – 1:09:06] Erik: It would still be…
[1:09:07 – 1:09:35] Erik: far and away more romantic than even if i like i don’t know who’s the most romantic writer you can think of if i wrote about my engagement in that way it was special in its own way but it wasn’t under the northern lights the snow was falling though well that’s good yeah so but it was in front of a salt and pepper factory everybody needs salt and pepper we need more than we need northern lights honestly yep so
[1:09:35 – 1:09:43] Adam: Yeah, well, this has been a lot of fun talking about the Northern Lights, hearing about the history of the guy who figured them all out.
[1:09:43 – 1:09:44] Adam: Christian Berkland.
[1:09:44 – 1:09:45] Adam: Berkland time.
[1:09:45 – 1:09:47] Adam: The man, the myth, the legend.
[1:09:47 – 1:09:48] Adam: You probably never heard of him.
[1:09:48 – 1:09:49] Adam: I had never either.
[1:09:49 – 1:09:51] Adam: I hadn’t heard of him until the other night.
[1:09:51 – 1:09:52] Adam: Eric was messaging me.
[1:09:53 – 1:10:09] Erik: and telling me all about Berkland and how we’re going to talk and I was like well should I look anything up nah yeah I was like well maybe it might be nice to go back and forth but then I kind of thought yeah it might be nice just to have somebody coming in fresh asking questions absolutely I tried my best I tried
[1:10:10 – 1:10:13] Adam: I failed on the solar wind question, though.
[1:10:13 – 1:10:14] Adam: That will haunt me.
[1:10:14 – 1:10:15] Adam: No, whatever.
[1:10:15 – 1:10:16] Adam: I was a little bamboozled.
[1:10:17 – 1:10:18] Adam: I was a little confused.
[1:10:18 – 1:10:26] Erik: But it might be fun to try to do that with other subjects in the future that are somewhat related to the Boundary Waters.
[1:10:26 – 1:10:26] Erik: Absolutely.
[1:10:27 – 1:10:31] Erik: Somebody reads a book and takes some notes, give you a little bit of a rundown.
[1:10:32 – 1:10:33] Erik: You can still read that book.
[1:10:34 – 1:10:34] Erik: I will.
[1:10:34 – 1:10:36] Adam: I’m going to have to borrow that from you.
[1:10:36 – 1:10:37] Erik: There’s a ton of stories in there that I didn’t get to.
[1:10:37 – 1:10:41] Adam: I just finished Station 11, and amazing.
[1:10:42 – 1:10:42] Adam: Got to check it out.
[1:10:43 – 1:10:46] Adam: And I’m starting on Winter Dance by Gary Paulsen.
[1:10:46 – 1:10:46] Erik: Oh, nice.
[1:10:46 – 1:10:47] Erik: That’s a great read.
[1:10:47 – 1:10:49] Erik: That’s super entertaining.
[1:10:49 – 1:10:50] Adam: It’s pretty entertaining.
[1:10:50 – 1:10:51] Adam: I’m pretty sure he’s embezzling.
[1:10:52 – 1:10:58] Adam: There’s no way he petted a fox, or I’m sorry, a brush wolf, or whatever.
[1:10:58 – 1:11:00] Adam: It was a coyote, I guess.
[1:11:00 – 1:11:03] Adam: He petted and befriended a brush wolf.
[1:11:03 – 1:11:04] Erik: You mean he’s embellishing?
[1:11:05 – 1:11:06] Adam: I think he’s embellishing.
[1:11:06 – 1:11:07] Adam: What did I say?
[1:11:07 – 1:11:09] Erik: Embezzling.
[1:11:09 – 1:11:10] Erik: How is he embezzling?
[1:11:10 – 1:11:12] Erik: How do you embezzle through a book?
[1:11:12 – 1:11:12] Adam: He’s embezzling stories.
[1:11:14 – 1:11:16] Adam: He petted a brush fox.
[1:11:17 – 1:11:20] Adam: He apparently petted a deer.
[1:11:20 – 1:11:26] Adam: He hung on by the edge of his snow hook from going into a gorge all in the first chapter.
[1:11:27 – 1:11:33] Adam: And then he sat down in the dog yard and his wife Ruth came out and she brings him tea.
[1:11:34 – 1:11:37] Adam: And she says, you’re going to do the Iditarod, aren’t you?
[1:11:37 – 1:11:38] Adam: And he goes, I guess so.
[1:11:39 – 1:11:40] Adam: That’s the first chapter.
[1:11:40 – 1:11:41] Adam: That’s what I read last night.
[1:11:42 – 1:11:44] Adam: I’m like, come on, Gary Paulson.
[1:11:44 – 1:11:47] Adam: Now I got to go reread Hatchet just to make sure he wasn’t full of it.
[1:11:47 – 1:11:48] Adam: But that was fiction.
[1:11:49 – 1:11:49] Adam: Well, was it?
[1:11:49 – 1:11:50] Adam: Yes.
[1:11:50 – 1:11:51] Adam: Well, what does winter dance?
[1:11:51 – 1:11:52] Adam: What about the river?
[1:11:52 – 1:11:53] Adam: Yeah.
[1:11:53 – 1:12:02] Erik: I mean, so a guy who got famous and made most of his money writing fiction and then wrote a book that was nonfiction.
[1:12:02 – 1:12:06] Erik: Didn’t have a couple of yarns to embellish.
[1:12:07 – 1:12:13] Adam: I think my biggest problem with Winterdance so far, and we’re getting way off track, but it’s okay.
[1:12:13 – 1:12:14] Erik: You can tune out if you want.
[1:12:14 – 1:12:15] Erik: We’re rambling now.
[1:12:15 – 1:12:16] Adam: Cue the exit music.
[1:12:16 – 1:12:17] Adam: Absolutely not.
[1:12:17 – 1:12:24] Adam: Winterdance, he says he’s living in northern Minnesota, and he’s like, yeah, we burned like 12 cords of oak.
[1:12:25 – 1:12:48] Adam: that winter oh yeah gary paulson what part of northern minnesota are you in that’s got a full flush with oak i don’t know yeah i don’t know south of duluth somewhere i don’t think that’s really northern minnesota depends on what his idea of northern minnesota is but down where the plenty of coyotes apparently i don’t know you can get oak shipped in i guess i don’t think that’s legal anymore but maybe back in the day
[1:12:48 – 1:12:53] Adam: But he was making it seem like they were pulling in all this oak with the dog team and the old sledge.
[1:12:54 – 1:12:56] Adam: And after they almost died seven times.
[1:12:56 – 1:12:59] Erik: There’s some oak kind of on the edge, like the…
[1:13:01 – 1:13:21] Erik: international falls boreal edge kind of cuts down over there there’s a slight little western like edge of i’ve never been over there maybe there is so there’s like some oaks over in bemidji and stuff i don’t really want to drag this beautiful northern lights episode down into no into the rags of yeah i would never have picked apart gary paulson
[1:13:22 – 1:13:24] Adam: Of all people, Gary Paulsen.
[1:13:24 – 1:13:25] Adam: I recommended the book.
[1:13:25 – 1:13:27] Erik: I never thought you would have had anything bad to say about it.
[1:13:27 – 1:13:27] Erik: Just read it.
[1:13:27 – 1:13:28] Erik: It’s a lark.
[1:13:28 – 1:13:31] Adam: Yeah, I mean, I cruised through the first chapter.
[1:13:31 – 1:13:34] Adam: I’m going to read it, so I’m excited.
[1:13:34 – 1:13:35] Adam: Just saying.
[1:13:35 – 1:13:42] Adam: Should we finish up with… We shall end this episode as we began the first in the series.
[1:13:43 – 1:13:50] Erik: With a commemorative and delicious…
[1:13:52 – 1:13:52] Erik: Shot.
[1:13:53 – 1:13:54] Erik: Shots.
[1:13:54 – 1:13:55] Erik: Of Akavit.
[1:13:56 – 1:13:57] Erik: Skalvin.
[1:13:57 – 1:13:58] Erik: Distillery.
[1:13:59 – 1:14:04] Erik: And, I mean, you can toast to whoever you want to toast to, but I know who I’m toasting to.
[1:14:05 – 1:14:07] Erik: And I think we should toast this shot.
[1:14:09 – 1:14:10] Adam: Yeah, to Lord Kelvin.
[1:14:17 – 1:14:17] Adam: No.
[1:14:18 – 1:14:19] Adam: Mr. Railgun, I think, no?
[1:14:20 – 1:14:22] Adam: Mr. Railgun…
[1:14:23 – 1:14:25] Erik: The Norwegian legend.
[1:14:25 – 1:14:26] Erik: He’s up there.
[1:14:26 – 1:14:27] Adam: Mount Hala.
[1:14:27 – 1:14:31] Erik: With Amundsen, Nansen, Birkeland.
[1:14:32 – 1:14:32] Erik: Cheers.
[1:14:33 – 1:14:33] Adam: Cheers.
[1:14:39 – 1:14:39] Erik: Cheers.
[1:14:42 – 1:14:43] Erik: Haka vit.
[1:14:46 – 1:14:47] Erik: I almost want to start an entire…
[1:14:50 – 1:15:07] Erik: sub-genre of this podcast where we just talk about arctic explorers fritz off nansen amundsen yeah first two right there fritz off have you ever seen a picture of fritz off nansen
[1:15:07 – 1:15:09] Adam: Gives me the shivers every time.
[1:15:10 – 1:15:12] Adam: He’s like a… Men’s granite.
[1:15:13 – 1:15:31] Erik: I mean, I think if there’s any women listening out there and you want to get like a little like just a kind of Kickstarter for whatever you’re into tonight, look up a picture of Fritzov Nansen, the legendary Arctic explorer.
[1:15:32 – 1:15:33] Erik: This guy skied across Greenland.
[1:15:34 – 1:15:35] Erik: He’s a handsome devil.
[1:15:35 – 1:16:03] Adam: handsome devil oh all right do you want to see more handsome devils go ahead and check out our instagram page and we’ll do our best let’s post our best fritz off nansen poses black black and white do some black and white hashtag show me your fritz off yeah and uh go ahead and email us your fritz off photos also your northern lights photos check out get that aperture down all the way down to 1.4
[1:16:04 – 1:16:05] Erik: If you can, those are expensive lenses.
[1:16:06 – 1:16:08] Erik: Most are working in the two to three range.
[1:16:08 – 1:16:09] Adam: Get it down to two.
[1:16:09 – 1:16:10] Adam: That’s good enough.
[1:16:10 – 1:16:13] Erik: Crank it down and get that tripod.
[1:16:13 – 1:16:14] Erik: You need a tripod.
[1:16:15 – 1:16:15] Erik: Cheap ones.
[1:16:15 – 1:16:17] Erik: Don’t spend money on expensive tripods.
[1:16:17 – 1:16:20] Erik: In my experience, expensive tripods are a waste of money.
[1:16:21 – 1:16:21] Adam: Yeah.
[1:16:22 – 1:16:23] Adam: It’s kind of like sunglasses.
[1:16:23 – 1:16:23] Adam: Yeah.
[1:16:23 – 1:16:25] Adam: You’re going to lose them or break them anyways.
[1:16:25 – 1:16:26] Erik: Especially if you’re using them in the winter.
[1:16:27 – 1:16:28] Adam: They all break.
[1:16:28 – 1:16:28] Adam: Yeah.
[1:16:28 – 1:16:30] Adam: Don’t bring your nice tripod out in the winter.
[1:16:30 – 1:16:35] Erik: No, the cold will snap any piece of cheap plastic on that thing in a second.
[1:16:37 – 1:16:38] Adam: All right.
[1:16:38 – 1:16:41] Adam: Well, I think that brings us full circle.
[1:16:41 – 1:16:41] Adam: Yeah.
[1:16:41 – 1:16:41] Adam: Sir.
[1:16:42 – 1:16:53] Adam: So thank you for joining me down here at Studio K next to the Wintermaker cherry wine and the bubbling pineapple tapas.
[1:16:54 – 1:16:56] Erik: Jug of mystery fruit and beer.
[1:16:56 – 1:16:56] Adam: Who knows?
[1:16:57 – 1:17:00] Adam: We always have plenty of fruits and beer bubbling here.
[1:17:01 – 1:17:05] Adam: So thank you for joining us, listeners and friends.
[1:17:05 – 1:17:08] Adam: We sure appreciate your support and your ears.
[1:17:09 – 1:17:10] Adam: Tune in in the future.
[1:17:10 – 1:17:15] Adam: We will be back with some more winter content before the waters open again.
[1:17:16 – 1:17:19] Adam: We hope you’re enjoying your winter in whatever way you’re spending it.
[1:17:19 – 1:17:28] Erik: Yeah, we’re probably an episode or two away from full-blown spring discussions.
[1:17:29 – 1:17:33] Adam: And a reminder, we will be at the Midwest Mountaineering Expo.
[1:17:33 – 1:17:34] Erik: I got a confirmation email.
[1:17:34 – 1:17:35] Erik: We’ve been accepted.
[1:17:35 – 1:17:36] Erik: Oh, we did?
[1:17:36 – 1:17:36] Adam: Yeah.
[1:17:36 – 1:17:38] Adam: They sent us a fax back.
[1:17:38 – 1:17:38] Adam: Yeah.
[1:17:38 – 1:17:39] Adam: We’re in.
[1:17:39 – 1:17:40] Adam: So that’ll be the end of April.
[1:17:41 – 1:17:44] Adam: We’ll see you down in the big city for a hoot and a hanny.
[1:17:44 – 1:18:08] Erik: yeah yeah midwest mountaineering will be there we it’s official now with stickers stickers stickers slash uh bumper stickers they’re almost big enough to be a bumper sticker yeah stickers slash uh uh coasters it’s like the same size of the coaster yeah if you have anything that you need to cover up or patch we’ve got the stickers for you absolute all right let’s get out of here
[1:18:09 – 1:18:09] Adam: All right.
[1:18:10 – 1:18:11] Adam: Well, thanks for the shot of the gweet.
[1:18:12 – 1:18:13] Erik: The gweet.
[1:18:14 – 1:18:15] Erik: That’s what we call it now.
[1:18:16 – 1:18:17] Adam: That’s what the LAPs say.
[1:18:17 – 1:18:18] Adam: The LAPs call it gweet.
[1:18:18 – 1:18:19] Erik: Yeah, they do.
[1:18:20 – 1:18:22] Adam: I have been Adam, and this is Eric.
[1:18:22 – 1:18:23] Adam: Thank you, Eric, for being here.
[1:18:24 – 1:18:24] Erik: Thank you.
[1:18:25 – 1:18:28] Adam: And this has been another episode of Tumble Home.
[1:18:28 – 1:18:34] Adam: We’ll catch you out there on the ice under the shimmering curtain.
[1:18:34 – 1:18:35] Adam: Good evening.
[1:20:02 – 1:20:03] SPEAKER_02: Nailed it.
[1:20:03 – 1:20:03] SPEAKER_02: That was it.
[1:20:03 – 1:20:04] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was the one.
