What an unforgettable night! On November 11, 2025, a powerful geomagnetic storm brought the aurora borealis—usually a far-northern spectacle—streaming into the skies over Virginia, turning the horizon into waves of pink, purple, and green. I grabbed my Sony A7S III and Samyang 24mm f/1.8 lens and headed to a quiet spot near Toano, just a short drive from Williamsburg. The show started subtle but built into a full display visible even from light-polluted Bortle 6 skies—my first aurora mosaic capture here in the U.S.
This panoramic image is a 6-panel stitch, blending 30-second exposures at ISO 3200 to capture the dynamic arcs and faint rays dancing low on the northern horizon. The aurora’s colors come from charged solar particles slamming into Earth’s atmosphere, exciting oxygen (greens/pinks) and nitrogen (purples) molecules—thanks to a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun earlier that day. It was the strongest solar flare of 2025 so far, peaking in a G4-level geomagnetic storm that pushed the lights as far south as Florida and Texas. We’re in the Sun’s 11-year solar maximum now, so expect more surprises like this in the coming months!
Captured handheld, no tracking—just pure excitement under the stars. If you’re chasing auroras, keep an eye on NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center for Kp-index forecasts above 5.