These are pictures of the aurora on Nov. 7 and 8 (and one from Nov. 10), 2004 from my house in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. We're just south (less than a mile) of 40 N and 76.4 W.
I was still learning to use my Nikon Coolpix 4500. Changing the settings ruins your night vision. So with warning of possibly aurora on Sunday, I looked at NORDLYS - Northern Lights. I set my camera to manual exposure, f2.8, shutter speed of 8 seconds, and ISO speed of 200. I have a tripod and made sure I could get the camera on and off it easily. Some of my pictures are a little crooked because I was on a slanted driveway or in the grass. I later adjusted the tripod legs.
Things I'll change next time ... use higher resolution format (I used the normal format, but I'll try fine) and maybe go to ISO 400 (I used ISO 400 and fine for the photo on Nov. 10). I should probably get a bulb release so that I can take longer exposures. I didn't get pictures of some of the white pulsing aurora because it wasn't there long enough to register on my camera.
On Nov. 10 and 11, I took pictures of the morning cluster of the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter. They are side-by-side here.
