A boat captain from Maine took these photos of the Northern Lights

Travel

“It was overwhelming.”

When Amanda Bracy learned earlier this week that the Northern Lights would light up the skies over Maine, she was determined to capture the rare sight on photographs.

So the boat’s captain spent the night in Cranberry Isles, near Acadia National Park, and her kaleidoscopic photos impressed tens of thousands of people online.

Bracy, a Cranberry Isles resident, posted her photos on the Maine Aurora Borealis Watch Facebook page. The photos received more than 35,000 likes, 2,000 comments and 5,500 shares.

The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are considered the “Holy Grail of skywatching,” according to Space.com. The phenomenon was visible from Sunday night into early Monday morning in parts of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

For Bracy, it was her third time capturing the Northern Lights on camera, and this time she took the photos at the harbor to better showcase the reflection.

“You could actually see it with your own eyes, which is something I’ve never experienced up here before,” she said.

There were another northern lights display in Maine in May, but Bracy said they were not as bright and she did not see them for long because of the clouds.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bracy said of this week’s exhibit. “It was mind-blowing. It was just me and one other person down there and I was like, ‘Do you see that?’ You could definitely see all the colors – blue, green, red, orange. It was pretty crazy.”

Photography is a hobby for Bracy, who is particularly interested in night photography and taking pictures of the Milky Way.

“There’s something special about the night sky,” she said. “It’s challenging, and that’s why it’s fun.”

Bracy said she used a Sony A6700 with a Sigma 16mm lens and also took some shots with her iPhone.

“But I was so excited I couldn’t hold my iPhone steady enough,” she said. “It’s really hard to hold something that steady for 10 seconds. That doesn’t sound like a long time, but it is.”

If you want to capture the Northern Lights with an iPhone, Bracy recommends using night mode and bringing a tripod.

And of course, choose a prime vantage point.

“From our town dock, we overlook the entire Acadia National Park,” Bracy said. “You could say we have one of the best views in the whole house.”

Check out some of Bracy’s photos of the Northern Lights below.