On the winter solstice I went out hoping to catch a glimpse of the comet Leonard which is possibly visible just after sunset. Unfortunately I didn’t see any signs of it and became frustrated when clouds began to cover the horizon. It was a cold night with temperatures near 10 degrees F and I was about to head back home when something unusual started to appear. My first thought was the Northern Lights. Quickly I knew this was not the aurora especially since I was shooting towards the south. A brief detour, the bright white dot just above the trees is Venus. Saturn and Jupiter are also in the picture higher up towards the left diagonally. Uncertain of exactly what was happening I continued to photograph the sky. Unfortunately my equipment was somewhat incomplete for such photography. I had a tripod but ended up having the wrong connector on the camera so I needed to figure out a way to shoot long exposure pictures. Using hard surfaces and a timer on the camera, I continued to shoot the sky all around me which you can see in the panorama below as these lights continued to hang in the night sky slowly changing. Sometimes shining brightly and then fading. The size would climb higher in the sky and then become shorter again.

I enjoyed these for about 45 minutes before they disappeared. Finally getting back into the car I could barely feel my fingers and toes. Quickly turning on the heat, I started driving and remembered seeing photos of these sky lights before but couldn’t remember what they were called or what causes them. Once home, the camera batteries went on the charger and I began to search lights in the night sky. Finally the answer was found – they are simply called light pillars. These are caused by ice crystals reflecting area lights and probably moonlight from the nearly full moon almost at the horizon. What an amazing surprise to celebrate this shortest day of the year! From what I can find, since all of the conditions which have to be just right for these to appear, they are more rare than the Northern Lights. Finally, a positive creation from all of our light pollution I guess.