Photographers Capture Breathtaking Northern Lights Across Hudson Valley Sky

I don't know about you, but when I hear Northern Lights and Aurora Borealis I think of Iceland. I can't be alone, right? Well, now you can think about the Hudson Valley when you think of the Northern Lights.

Photographers Capture Aurora Borealis Across Hudson Valley Skies

In the early morning hours of Friday, March 24th photographers across the region began sharing photos of the Hudson Valley sky. What makes it different this time around is that there was a hint of green and purple to the usually dark late-night/early-morning sky.

Photographer Alison Maltby-Duggan writes on her Instagram page, @alisoncapturestheworld, that she got a notification on her Aurora app and decided to take a drive out to the Ashokan Reservoir in Ulster County. While there, she didn't think she would catch anything due to the cloud coverage. But, she decided to snap some photos anyway and what she saw brought her to tears. Alison writes:

Forgot to turn down my settings from the test shot. I'm not using my normal astrophotography lens. What's the 500 rule for this one? Calculator out. There we go. Click. Wait for the picture to come up... It's there. It's actually there. I can't see it with my naked eye, but it's there. I got it and it's more beautiful then I can imagine because I captured it. A lifelong dream fulfilled.

Maltby-Duggan adds that she didn't realize "that sometimes an aurora is there but you can't see it."

Further up north in Corinth, New York photographer Blaine Stauffer shared photos of the Northern Lights along the Hudson River and adds she snapped the shot around 11 pm Thursday, March 23rd with "Nikon D850, 20mm, f2.8, 10 sec. at iso 640."

Another photo, taken by William Flamholtz, of the Walkway Over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie caught a lot of attention on social media. The picture was taken around 12:30-1:00 am.

Can the Northern Lights Be Seen in The Hudson Valley?

Many on social media were questioning the photos, calling them photoshopped and asking if the Northern Lights could even be seen in the Hudson Valley. According to reports, it's rare but possible.

Business Insider is reporting that the Northern Lights "could appear in the skies over some northern US states" on Friday, March 24th due to "solar winds blowing from a giant coronal hole on the sun."

How to See the Northern Lights in the Hudson Valley?

While it doesn't look like the weather is on our side, all of the photographers featured above recommend using an aurora app or Space Watch app. Keep your eyes to the sky this weekend and let us know what you see!