The avid award-winning photographer, 34, from Indonesia witnessed an astronomical event few could fathom: a night set in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, capturing green and purple “dancing” skies, the rare Neowise comet, and a stunning tapestry of Milky Way stars—all at once strewn across a celestial panorama.
The quest for the spectacle, he said, speaks to the meaning of life itself.
Aryanto had quit his nine-to-five mechanical engineering job in West Australia to pick up his camera and capture the beauty of the world, traveling to fulfill his mission to hunt for the most elusive, extraordinary, and spectacular perspectives possible.
This led him to the Canadian Rockies where he caught the panorama of a lifetime one starry night. But like many things in life, that journey began with a failure.
In order to catch the comet, Aryanto had to find a perch high enough to spot the horizon. “The first hike I did was to Tower of Babel, quite a popular one, by Moraine Lake,” Aryanto told The Epoch Times. “We got up there around sunset time, we saw the Neowise for about 10, 15 minutes before it got covered in clouds and that was it.”
He was slightly discontented.
The photographer, who now lives in Bali, had chosen a nomadic lifestyle to pursue his photography and had been living at Lake Louise for a year and a half. At this time, he was leaving in 11 days, and time was running out for him accomplishing what he'd come for.
So, after learning from the weather report that the skies were to clear up around midnight, and locating a vantage point on Google Maps some three mile’s drive away at Tent Ridge in Kananaskis, he and a friend set out. Carrying 18 kilograms (40 pounds) of gear, he scaled the rocky summit amidst overcast skies.
“We got up there about half an hour to an hour before sunset,” he said. “The light made it through and lit up the clouds, so that was perfect, it was an awesome sunset.
“But if I want to see the Neowise, I sure hope the weather is right.”
The photographer set up a time-lapse camera and tripod. Upon gazing at the preview screen, though, he noticed a green glow across the horizon and at first, he thought the camera had malfunctioned. Until he realized: it was the aurora borealis.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is going to be a good night!” he recalled.
As the sky darkened, the faint glow of the Neowise comet appeared before them—when the clouds suddenly disappeared, just as the forecast had predicted, and the glow of the aurora intensified.
“It was incredible,” said Aryanto. “Throughout the night, I was full of excitement, running back and forth, just happy, jumping around. I’m just like, ‘This is the best night of my life!’
“And it literally was.”
Not only were the aurora borealis and comet Neowise populating the mountain silhouette panorama simultaneously, but the Milky Way then rose in the south for a phenomenal trifecta occurrence. Then, unbelievably, Aryanto sighted a rare dancing ribbon of green and purple above, an aurora-related phenomenon known by the acronym STEVE.
The once-in-a-lifetime concurrence on the ridge that night was a trophy of adventure for Aryanto. He would have stayed till dawn except he’d promised to leave with his friend, and so they departed at 3 a.m.
Recalling the moment, the photographer said he still can’t believe what transpired and has to pinch himself to make sure he isn’t dreaming.
“As soon as we drove back, and I’m getting back from the mountain, I’m getting all these notifications,” he said. “From my friends, as well as from my apps, saying that, ‘Aurora alert,’ and I’m just like, ‘Yep, I was there!’”
As for Aryanto’s life lesson, he is compelled always to challenge himself to achieve his next picture—meanwhile reminding us that failure is not something to despise.
“It doesn’t matter what the journey’s like, as long as can do it, there’s always a positive,” he said. “This is one example: if that photo that I got from Tower of Babel was bang on, I probably won’t be looking that hard for the next opportunity.
“You got to trust the journey, you got to trust the struggle.”
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