March 8 Aurora

A faint and distant auroral display makes a brief appearance along the northern horizon as seen from the grounds at Echo Hill Presbyterian Church just north of Marion, Iowa around 9:28 PM, Thursday, March 8, 2012. Observation of the Northern Lights was made even more difficult with the extreme saturation of light from the moon just one day removed from being full. The brightness of the ground at bottom is from the moon's illumination. This image is a seven second exposure at f/5, 1600 ISO and 18mm focal length. Air temperature was about 36 degrees F.