This gallery of images chronicles one day of strange and wonderful atmospheric phenomena.

It started out about 1:30 AM with Northern Lights from a large explosive sunspot that had been bombarding Earth for over a week. Aurora were visible as far south as Texas and I managed to catch them for about a half hour in the middle of the night.

Later in the day, a golden-red sun was setting in a smoke filled sky. The smoke had drifted southwest from Canada forest fires.
I photographed the disk of the sun showing the sunspot that caused the Aurora, and the scene of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains.

Later that evening a Golden Moon shined through the smokey haze high above the South horizon. In all it was a fascinating Day in the Life of the Sky.