“Is this the place for the lights?” she asked expectantly.

As if Google Maps had a dropped pin at the magical opening of a space window in Bradford County where you could see the elusive aurora borealis.

“It sure is,” I answered.

I first saw the lights—the dreamlike dancing visions of green and red and purple—as I fought off sleep on a slowly rocking train inching its way over the northern Manitoba muskeg in the 1990s. Was that a blip of green? A moving cloud? A wish so persistent it simply created a picture in my mind? As it often is, the aurora was fleeting. Stepping off the train in Churchill, known as much for the aerial display as for the terrestrial one—polar bears—we were there to see, the sky hid behind a gray flannel blanket for the next five days. Chances since have been latitude-dependent. Trips to Alaska and the Yukon provided some great sightings; unsurprisingly, a Pennsylvania view eluded me.

But 2024 was filled with anticipation. At the peak of the sun’s eleven-year activity cycle, the most powerful geomagnetic storm in twenty-one years hit the planet in May. With misty eyes, I scrolled through my phone’s notifications from any one of six aurora apps: “They’re HERE!!!” The lights, seen as far south as the Florida Keys, were no doubt dancing above those Churchill-gray clouds that enveloped the east coast that night. I just shut off the phone and went to bed.

Five months later the sun sneezed out another huge coronal mass ejection of plasma in our direction, sending a severe G4 geomagnetic storm hurtling toward earth. While it wasn’t equal to May’s G5 storm, my heart leapt at the possibility, for in addition to bringing you those notifications, your iPhone can “see” the aurora that you can’t. Something about computational photography and artificial intelligence left me standing in the yard and hanging out windows taking photos of “nothing” and marveling at even the faintest hint of color on the horizon. In Pennsylvania. It was magical.

Little did I know.

The next two nights the show intensified, and word dribbled out to even those who don’t endlessly scroll through space weather sites that by October 10 the peak, “they” said, would arrive.

Less than a mile from my house on a (temporarily) quiet gravel road, a cloudless northern sky spread out before me. I leaned against the hood of the car. The temperature was hovering on either side of fifty. I was all alone as that gray flannel of May gave way to millions of stars. I felt like I was cheating. The first hint came at nautical twilight, just as the stars were coming out. By 9 p.m., if you knew what to look for, you could see a faint glow, and auroral pillars appeared on photos. By 9:30, those Google Map pins had been placed on the hills surrounding The Valley, and the curious had started to arrive.

“I don’t see anything,” the woman said, the disappointment of living a latitudinally challenged life never more evident.

“Do you have a smartphone?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“I do,” piped up her daughter, the device already in her hand.

“Point it at the sky, hold it still, and take a picture,” I suggested.

The aurora’s magic then took hold.

“Ooohhh…I never thought I would see this,” Mom said, her wonder turning into true excitement tinged with a little emotion as her own phone came out of her pocket. She took picture after picture—each bringing more marvel and awe. I stopped watching the sky and delighted in seeing her face in the glow of her phone. I took the opportunity to explain a bit about the aurora—the solar cycle and substorms, the charged particles hitting our atmosphere, why the colors were different. None of it, none of the science with its “whys” and “hows,” could explain the sheer enchantment of the moment.

Others came and went for the next hour or so, the tour guide in me sharing photo tricks and science tips and just delighting in the discoveries the visitors made. Most—if not all—of them would never get this opportunity again; people say “once-in-a-lifetime,” a lot, but this was its definition.

After about a half hour, the woman reluctantly put her camera away and she and her daughter got into the car. “This was amazing. I never thought I would ever see this,” she said again, her voice still filled with the spectacle. “If I didn’t have to get up for work tomorrow, I’d stay till dawn.” Her “thank you,” was returned in earnest; sometimes the greatest joy is bringing joy to others. They drove away in a cloud of dust and even as the lights danced in front of me, her smile, her excitement, her exhilaration outshone the sky for that moment.

I didn’t have to get up for work the next day, so I leaned on the car for another hour or so, taking a picture occasionally, to make sure my friend was still there. Notifications turned off on my phone, I didn’t know what was coming until the sky suddenly exploded. The logical left side of my brain knew it was a new solar substorm arriving; the holistic right side screamed at me to just enjoy.

For the next twenty minutes, the dance was not only to the north in front of me, but overhead and even behind. The colors fighting for attention with, and winning over, a first-quarter moon in the cloudless sky were everywhere. I didn’t know where to look next, but it really didn’t matter. My peripheral vision was also filled with color and light.

“Wow,” I said to no one.

More than once.

It was, indeed, the place for the lights.