THE SITKA SENTINEL
- Dee Longenbaugh
"Book Captures Aurora"
Michael Klensch of Skagway has the soul of a poet and the skill of a top photographer. He describes his truly beautiful photos of the aurora borealis with short essays on classical views of the sky and its starry inhabitants. The book format is oblong, which makes for a nice layout, and the color reproduction is outstanding.
There's a short lecture on Aurora and Sol and the Pleiades of Roman lore, as well as a scientific explanation of the cause of the Northern Lights, which isn't nearly as much fun as Roman myths. That could be my own bias, although I never could see more than the belt of Orion and thought the ancients were really stretching it in some of the constellations.
The Valkyries of the Norse are brought into the story as well, although it's a bit disappointing that none of the Tlingit legends are referred to.
[note: the reviewer accidentally missed the native legends page. --Mike]
However, the stunning photographs, most taken from Skagway but some from northern British Columbia and the Yukon are included, show the various colors and shapes of the lights. He also shows a surley prize-winning double exposure of the sun and the aurora streaming down to soften his lecture on the solar winds and magnetic fields for the unscientific.
He also captures some great shots of the moon and Venus rising above the mountains in Skagway. Perhaps the most spectacular event he witnessed was a night on the beach when all was red about him, and a whale and her calf breached, as did some seals, in a red mist.
The two most amazing things to this non-astronomer are that he used only ordinary 35mm cameras and no tricks other than the one double exposure and, most of all, that a resident of Southeast Alaska found enough clear nights to photograph the sky.
Buy two copies - one for you and one for your sky pals Down South.
SKY AND TELESCOPE MAGAZINE
- Stuart J. Goldman
"Aurora's Winter Waltz"
If you've never seen a vibrant display of the northern lights, this book may inspire you to take the journey poleward. Alaskan photographer, Michael Klensch has collected his finest aurora imagery as captured from his home state and northwestern Canada. Most of the pictures in this self-published book are accompanied by brief captions, but Klensch also provides a bit of background about auroras and one longer narrative about an especially vibrant display (one photo in this section looks more like a Hawaiian volcano erupting that the northern lights). The sparseness of text is just as well - the pages showing varied glowing forms hanging over mountains and lakes really don't need elaboration.