Thanks to an alert from SpaceWeather.com, last night I was treated to a display of the aurora borealis.

After looking up for a few minutes with my mouth gaping open in amazement, I rushed back in the house, took a quick look through my camera manual (to figure out how to set the exposure manually) and headed back out. These two pictures, which were the best of the lot, were taken with a 30 second exposure at F2.8.

I first went outside about 10:45. I spent the next hour and a half watching the ribbons of light dance above me.