Norway – The Amazing Sky

December 15, 2024December 16, 2024

The Great Auroras of 2024

The Sun peaked at “solar maximum” and gave us wonderful sky shows in 2024.

Officially, the Sun reached the peak of its roughly 11-year cycle of activity — “solar max” — in late 2024. That’s according to NASA and NOAA.

During 2024 several major solar storms erupted as a result of the Sun’s increased activity. They blew massive clouds of energetic particles — electrons and protons — away from the Sun. Some of those storm clouds swept past Earth, sparking bright auroras widely seen in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

The rise and fall of solar activity. The peak at right is as of November 2024 in mid-Cycle 25. Courtesy SolarCycleScience.com.

I was fortunate enough, as many were, to witness several of 2024’s great auroras, from home in Alberta, and from as far south as Arizona.

Trips north to Churchill, Manitoba, and to northern Norway also presented some fine aurora nights. But that’s normal at any time in the solar cycle from those sub-Arctic and Arctic locations.

It’s when the aurora comes to you that you get a truly memorable show. And 2024 had its share of them.

NOTE: My blog has a lot of images and links to movies that may take a while to load. Images can be clicked on to bring them up full screen. The blog also contains many links to other sites to learn more!

Starting the Year — February in Churchill

This was the month I made my annual trek to Churchill, Manitoba, to instruct aurora tour groups at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. Why not join us in 2025?

An aurora selfie at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, on February 10, with a modest Kp4-level storm underway. This is 20-seconds with the TTArtisan 11mm fisheye lens at f/2.8 on the Canon R6 at ISO 1600.

Yes, the air is cold (usually about -25° C) but the skies are often clear and aurora filled, as Churchill sits under the normal location of the auroral oval, the main zone of auroras. In fact, it is as far south in the world as the auroral oval normally resides, at a latitude of only 58º North, well south of the Arctic. If it’s clear, there’s almost always some level of Northern Lights.

This year, 2024, was no exception. Even on nights with low readings on the usual auroral indicators we got sky-filling displays that are rare down south.

This is a southerly arc of green and red Northern Lights on February 9. This is a panorama of 5 segments, each 20 seconds with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 on the Canon R6 at ISO 1600.

What I find in Churchill is that even with numerically weak and visually dim shows, as above, the camera often sees very red and photogenic auroras. The eye sees the colours only when the aurora brightens, which it often does (as I record below), sparking rippling green curtains (from glowing oxygen) fringed with pink (from glowing nitrogen).

I didn’t shoot time-lapses or movies this year in Churchill. Instead, the example movie above, shot using just real-time (not time-lapse) videos, is from February 2019. It is from my AmazingSky YouTube channel.

The video presents the aurora much as the eye saw it, and as it appears when it dances.

This is a 360º panorama of the all-sky aurora of February 10, from the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. This is a panorama of 9 segments, each 15 seconds with the TTArtisan 11mm lens at f/2.8 on the Canon R6 at ISO 1600.

However, I tend now to shoot mostly panoramas, as above, from this year’s visit. They can take in the full show across the sky, in high-resolution images suitable for framing!

May 10 — The Great May Display

The aurora apps were beeping this day, warning a great display was in the offing. The composite satellite image below from NOAA shows the actual extent of the aurora around the Northern Hemisphere during the great display of May 10/11 .

Note how the auroral oval is indeed an oval and how the centre is not the geographic North Pole. It is the North Geomagnetic Pole, in the High Arctic of Canada. 🇨🇦 So the oval dips down farther south over North America than it does over Europe.

Image courtesy of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The May 10 solar storm rated a top “G5” on the G1 to G5 storm scale, while the “Kp”geomagnetic disturbance index reached Kp8 on the Kp0 (nothing) to Kp9 (OMG!) scale.

I gave a talk at a local community art gallery that evening, and alerted the audience to the likelihood of fine aurora later that night. Sure enough, I got home in time to see the sky already lighting up with aurora in the twilight and behind the clouds.

This was the multi-coloured curtain to the south during the great display of May 10. This is a 10-second exposure with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2.8 on the Canon Ra at ISO 1600.

The clouds cleared off enough to reveal one of the most colourful shows I’d seen in many years. This time there was no question about seeing reds and vivid pinks with the unaided eye. This was the type of show everyone hopes for. But it takes a Kp6 show and higher to spark it.

This was the view as the aurora suddenly brightened and converged at the zenith for a superb corona effect. This lasted no more than a minute before it dimmed and subsided again. This is a 9-second exposure with the Laowa 7.5mm circular fisheye lens at f/2 on the Canon R5 at ISO 800.

I blogged previously about the Great May Aurora Display here.

And a music video of the May 10 display incorporating time-lapse and real-time video footage is on my YouTube channel, with the clickable link below. Do enlarge to full screen.

One of the most remarkable aspects of this show was the blue auroras later in the night (shown below), created by sunlight illuminating the upper curtains and reacting with atmospheric nitrogen. The usual auroral greens and reds are from oxygen. Pinks are also from nitrogen. Blues are less common, but were in abundance this night.

This is a 360° panorama of the May 10/11 aurora exhibiting vertical blue and magenta rays across the western (left), northern (bottom), and eastern (right) sky, and an odd bright patch to the south at top. This was toward the end of the main activity this night, at about 2:30 am. This is made of 20 segments, each 13-second exposures, with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 on the Canon Ra at ISO 800.

Auroras around summer solstice, June 21, can be more colourful and often blue, as the Sun lights the upper atmosphere all night. I saw blue auroras again later in the summer.

July — NLCs and Classic Auroral Arcs

June and July are normally when we in western Canada get good displays of another northern mid-latitude phenomenon, noctilucent clouds (NLCs).

This shows sunlit noctilucent clouds in the northwest in the summer twilight, and as the waxing crescent Moon sets at left. This was July 9 at 11:45 pm MDT, in a panorama of 5 segments, each a 30-second exposure with the Canon RF24-105mm lens at f/4 and 58mm on the Canon R5 at ISO 400.

These are ice clouds at 80 km altitude (almost in space) that are lit by sunlight all night long. I saw only a couple of displays of NLCs this year, and it wasn’t for lack of trying and clear nights, even amid forest fire smoke. The panorama above is from home on July 9, over a yellow canola field. NLC season always coincides with peak canola colour time!

Might NLCs be suppressed by high solar activity? There’s some data that suggests they are. However, we weren’t getting many auroras either in early summer.

A 180° panorama of the surprise aurora of July 25, as there was little indication in the days before that an aurora was possible this night. This is a panorama of 6 segments, with the Viltrox 16mm lens at f/2 on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 800, each 8-second exposures.

But at the end of July the Northern Lights returned for some classic shows of arcs across my northern sky, first on July 25 (above), with a prominent sunlit blue/purple ray at left by the Big Dipper. The Kp Index reached Kp5 this night, which is enough to produce a good display from my location in southern Alberta. The Moon is rising at right.

A 180° panorama of the Kp5-level aurora on July 29, with a green arc, and magenta and red rays. This is a panorama of 8 segments, each 30-second exposures with the Viltrox 16mm at f/2 on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 800.

Then again, four nights later on July 29, an auroral arc appeared across the north, this one with reds mixing with greens to create a yellow band in the east, as well as blue and magenta tops to the green arc that follows the curve of the auroral oval.

August 1 — STEVE Appears

While June and July were quiet months, August made up for them.

Of all the auroras this year, only this one, on August 1, produced a showing of STEVE, at least as best I saw in 2024. He can be elusive and easily missed!

This is a capture of a faint appearance of a STEVE-like arc during the Kp5 aurora of July31/Aug 1. This was at 12:10 a.m. MDT, so on Aug 1. The camera recorded the pinkish rays at right which are likely STEVE arcs below a more diffuse and fainter red band which may be a SAR, a Stable Auroral Red arc.

STEVE is the odd arc, often white or mauve, that appears southward of the main aurora (from here in the Northern Hemisphere), typically after a show has peaked, then subsided and retreated back north, as it did above.

STEVE stands for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, as it is caused by horizontally flowing hot gas, and so is not, by definition, a true aurora created by energetic particles raining vertically down magnetic field lines.

For a classic showing of STEVE see my video, above, from August 2022. High-resolution 4K video I shot this night formed the basis for a scientific research paper, as it revealed structures in STEVE no one had seen before.

This is a capture of a brief appearance of a STEVE arc in the west during the Kp5 aurora of July31/Aug 1. This was at 1:10 a.m. MDT, so on Aug 1. The mauve STEVE arc was visible for about 15 minutes before it gradually faded. The green picket fence fingers, which were visible to the eye but colourless, appeared only a minute or so before this image and were gone no more than 2 mnutes later.

STEVEs are often accompanied by green “picket fence fingers” hanging down from the mauve arc. These fingers are more akin to normal auroras, but are created by particles from the STEVE band raining down local magnetic field lines. They do not come from far out in space as they do in a normal aurora!

August 4 — A Coronal Outburst

On the night of August 3/4 I was able to join a photo tour run by local photographer Neil Zeller, to shoot Milky Way nightscapes. Escaping clouds, we ended up at a scenic spot south of Medicine Hat, Alberta, called Red Rock Coulee.

A 180° panorama of a Kp5-level aurora on a partly cloudy night, August 3/4. This was looking to the northeast at 3:00 am from a side road off the Trans-Canada Highway in southern Alberta just east of Brooks.

On the way home, the aurora began to let loose behind the clouds. We stopped once off the highway as the aurora brightened in an arc across the northeast, above.

A bright auroral curtain sweeps from the zenith down the western sky, as the sky brightens with the blue of a dawn twilight. This was the morning of August 4, with a Kp5 to 6 level aurora underway. The location was just off Highway 1 between Brooks and Bassano, Alberta. This is a single 13-second exposure with the Viltrox 16mm lens at f/2 on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 400.

We stopped again later, now at 4 am, and marvelled as the curtains converged at the zenith in the finest manifestation an aurora can produce, a swirling zenith “corona.”

A music video from August 4, using just a single real-time video, not a time-lapse, is above. It shows almost the full but brief appearance of the corona, just as the eye saw it looking straight up!

August 11 — Another Great Display

August was a good month! Right after the annual Saskatchewan Summer Star Party in the Cypress Hills I headed farther east to Grasslands National Park, a favourite dark-sky site I had not visited since 2019.

My plan was to shoot the annual Perseid meteor shower that was to peak on Sunday, August 11, from the same spot I shot it in 2016.

A 270° panorama of the aurora in the evening twilight on August 11, from the 70 Mile Butte trailhead in Grasslands National Park, West Block near Val Marie, Saskatchewan. This is a panorama of 11 segments, each 15 seconds with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2.8 on the Canon R5 at ISO 800.

The aurora had other plans. Again, as it did on May 10, the sky was lighting up with colours as it darkened in the evening twilight, above.

This is a 360° all-sky panorama of the Kp6 to 7-level aurora on August 11, from Grasslands National Park. This is a panorama of 12 segments, each 4 seconds with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 on the Canon R5 at ISO 4000.

The aurora expanded to fill the sky, and with odd fragmented bits, shown above. My trio of cameras set up for the meteor shower got repurposed into taking aurora time-lapses, stills, and panoramas. And selfies! — the title slide for this blog was from this memorable night at Grasslands.

The aurora was bright enough during this substorm outburst at 12:15 am that the red and green colours could be seen with the eye, though they were subtle. This is a 2-second exposure with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 on the Canon R5 at ISO 3200.

A notable moment was at midnight when, even to the eye, the sky to the east suddenly turned red, and a wave of crimson aurora quickly swept in. The reds from oxygen mix with the more usual auroral greens, also from oxygen, to create areas of yellow in the sky.

This was also peak night for the 2024 Perseid meteor shower. One bright Perseid meteor shoots down the Milky Way in Cygnus at top, amid the converging rays of the aurora at the magnetic zenith. This is with the Laowa 10mm lens at f/2.8 on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 6400 for 2 seconds.

A few still frames in the time-lapses did manage to catch a Perseid meteor or two, as above, embedded in the vivid curtains of light. But the meteors were upstaged by the Northern Lights this night.

A music video of this show is above, also on my YouTube channel (it’s been a busy year!). Using only time-lapses, it captures the sudden arrival of the red sub-storm, sped up to be sure, but it seemed that quick!

August 30 — From Onset to Recovery

This night I was hoping to shoot deep-sky objects with telescopes I was testing at home. Again, the aurora had other ideas.

This view is looking north, but the fisheye lens is taking in much of the sky. The August 30 show was somewhat unexpected, though there were last-hour warnings a sky-covering display might be possible. This is a single 4-second exposure with the TTArtisan 7.5mm fisheye lens at f/2 on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 3200.

As the movie shows, a band of Lights across the north early in the evening promised to develop. So I set up a time-lapse camera and fisheye lens to capture, for once, a complete development of an aurora, from a diffuse band, to the onset of an active sub-storm outburst which occurred, as they often do, at midnight when we are looking down Earth’s magnetic tail at the source of the aurora particles.

As the video shows, the storm then subsides and the aurora changes character. During the post-sub-storm “recovery phase,” usually when we are under the dawn sector of the auroral oval, an aurora can switch to a pulsating effect with patches of aurora flashing off and on and flaming up to the zenith. This form of aurora is caused by electrons trapped in the Van Allen radiation belts that are bouncing back and forth from pole to pole.

To capture this aspect of the show I switched to real-time video with that same lens, reviewed here on a previous blog.

The music video of this show, above, uses a mix of time-lapses and real-time videos shot with the 360º 7.5mm fisheye lens. It’s a great aurora lens for capturing it all!

September 16 — A Colourful All-Sky Show

Auroras are often most frequent, active, and bright around the spring and autumn equinoxes, when the magnetic field lines of Earth and interplanetary space better connect. It’s called the Russell-McPherron Effect.

This is a 360° panorama from left (southeast) to right (northeast) and extending from the horizon to the zenith, taking in the entire sky during an outburst of a particularly colourful aurora on September 16. This is a panorama of 12 segments, each 4 seconds with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 on the Canon R5 at ISO 400.

September 16 (6 days before the autumnal equinox) saw another all-sky show that, for us in western Canada, rivalled May 10. As with the spring show, this aurora was notable for its great range of colours, with nitrogen pinks and magentas mixed in with shades of oxygen yellow-greens and reds.

A darker blue-green band to the south (at left above) during the peak could be aurora from incoming protons exciting hydrogen, not from the usual electrons that excite all other auroras and light up oxygen and nitrogen atoms and molecules.

Yes, there are proton auroras. Another research paper using my images from an October 2021 aurora explored the relationship between proton auroras and SAR arcs (explained below).

This is an all-sky 360° panorama from the horizon at the edges, to the zenith at centre, taking in the entire sky during an outburst of a particularly colourful aurora on September 16. This is a panorama of 12 segments, each 4 seconds with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 on the Canon R5 at only ISO 400.

The September 16 show started with a diffuse band which quickly exploded as a sub-storm onslaught of energetic particles arrived to light up the aurora with greater brilliance, colours, and rapid motion. The onset of a substorm can happen in literally just a minute.

Even the nearly Full Moon failed to diminish this show, seen from home under perfect skies. Luckily, the smoky season had abated.

A music video of this night’s show is also above on YouTube. Do click through to watch this and the other videos in full screen mode.

October 10 — Red Aurora from Arizona

Six months to the day after the great May 10 show, the sky erupted again with auroras seen all over the world, even from more southerly latitudes that don’t normally see Northern Lights.

A rare red aurora seen from latitude +32º N from southeast Arizona during the major Kp8-level storm of October 10. This is looking north from the Quailway Cottage near Portal, Arizona and Rodeo, New Mexico. This is a single 15-second exposure with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 15mm and f/2.8 on the Canon R5 at ISO 1600.

I know because I was at one of those latitudes, in southern Arizona at 32° N. The aurora created the kind of show seen from areas that don’t normally get auroras — a red sky on the horizon. It is these ominous red skies that provoked Medieval fears of divine wrath and myths of armies clashing in the distant North.

Red auroras can also occur in the Southern Hemisphere (as can every other form of aurora) when the aurora australis brightens and extends farther north than normal, lighting up the southern sky red at locations that rarely see the Southern Lights.

In both cases we are seeing just the red tops of distant curtains that mostly lie hidden over the horizon, the red coming from oxygen reactions that can happen only at the rarefied altitudes of 300 to 500 km. Oxygen greens come from 100 to 300 km up.

From Arizona, I saw what many in the U.S. saw this night — a prominent glow, obviously red even to the eye, across the northern horizon. I was missing a far better show at home!

This is a 360° panorama covering the entire sky and extending up to the zenith at centre, capturing a rare SAR (Stable Auroral Red) arc across the Arizona sky in the pre-dawn hours of October 11. This is a panorama of 12 segments, each 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the Canon RF15-35mm lens on the Canon R5 at ISO 3200.

But unique to my more southerly site was this phenomenon, also widely seen across the U.S. and southern Canada.

Accompanying the “normal” aurora to the north was a diffuse red (to the camera) arc across the sky that lasted most of the night. This was a Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arc, created by thermal energy flowing horizontally in the high atmosphere some 400 km up.

SARs have been seen evolving into STEVEs, as the mechanisms seem related. Indeed, one of my images from August 1, shown above, seems to show a SAR/STEVE hybrid.

I set up a wide-angle lens and time-lapse hoping to catch such an evolution first-hand, which would have been of great interest to researchers. Alas, the SAR did not cooperate, stubbornly remaining a SAR all night.

This was the pre-dawn scene from southeastern Arizona on the morning of October 11 that frames a suite of skyglows. This is a panorama of 3 segments, each a stack of 5 x 1-minute tracked exposures with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 15mm and f/2.8 on the Canon R5 at ISO 1600.

By dawn, with blue sunlight at work, the SAR looked magenta in the twilight, accompanied by two other sky glows:

The pyramid-shaped Zodiacal Light created by sunlight reflecting off cometary and meteoric dust in the inner solar system,
And the winter Milky Way, created by the combined light of distant stars in our section of our Galaxy.
So in one image we have atmospheric, interplanetary, and interstellar sky glows! This was truly an amazing sky, the likes of which I might never see again.

Ending the Year — November in Norway

In early November I headed to Norway to instruct my first aurora group there since 2019. The location was on board a ship, the m/s Nordkapp, a ferry in the Hurtigruten fleet that does 12-day runs along the coast, from Bergen in the south, to Kirkenes in the far north, and back again.

Passengers on board the m/s *Nordkapp* are watching the Northern Light show on November 9, from the coast of Norway. This is 0.4 seconds at f/1.8 with the Nikkor 20mm lens on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 3200.

We got three nights in a row of active auroras on the northbound voyage. A Kp4 to 5 storm brought the Lights farther south and overhead for us early in the voyage, something we don’t normally see in Norway until we get underneath the auroral oval, which at that longitude in the world lies above the Arctic Circle, north of 66° latitude.

A colourful aurora appears in the darkening evening twilight sky at sea along the coast of Norway on November 9. This is a single 2-second exposure with the 20mm Nikkor lens at f/1.8 on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 1600.

But on November 9, with a storm underway, the show started early, rudely interrupting our group’s cocktail hour as we all rushed up on deck. As it can do, the aurora glowing in a twilight sky took on added tints.

This is a panorama of auroral arcs across the southern sky, with prominent red content contrasting with the oxygen yellow-green bands. Taken on November 10/11 (just after midnight). This is a panorama of 7 segments, each 1.3-second exposures with the Nikkor 20mm lens at f/1.8 on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 3200.

The next night, November 10, as we sailed through the mountainous Lofoten Islands, we were treated to an aurora with lots of red content, above. No two auroras are alike!

An arc of Northern Lights points the way into the narrow Trollfjord in the Lofoten Islands of Norway, as our ship, the m/s *Nordkapp* enters the fjord at night by searchlight. This is a 0.5-second exposure at f/1.8 with the Nikkor 20mm lens on the Nikon Z6III at ISO 1600.

A curtain of aurora also nicely pointed the way into the short but scenic Trollfjord, a fjord the ship captains like to navigate into for a memorable side trip as we slide through the narrow canyon with seemingly inches to spare.

A gallery of my Norway auroras is here on my website.

All going well, I will be back in Norway for two cruises in October. Join me!

A music video of real-time aurora sequences shot from on deck during my November 2024 Norway cruise is above on YouTube. Note the phones held high, the way most people now shoot the aurora, and usually with very good success!

What’s Coming for 2025?

We have more to look forward to in 2025.

First, it is likely that the Sun has not peaked, but may undergo a second peak of maximum activity in 2025 or 2026. A double peak is common at many solar maxes. Just look at the graph at the opening of the blog, and the previous peaks of Cycles 23 and 24.

Plus, the most energetic solar flares and storms often occur after the peak on the downward trend of activity. So we could well see more worldwide aurora displays like we had on May 10 and October 10 in the coming two to three years. The show is far from over!

Watch websites like SpaceWeather.com for aurora alerts and news of solar events coming our way.

— Alan, December 15, 2024 / AmazingSky.com

March 15, 2019

Auroras at Sea

Aurora from at Sea Near Lofotens #1

As I do a couple of times a year, earlier this month I was cruising the coast of Norway chasing the Northern Lights – successfully!

One of my “retirement gigs” is to serve as a lecturer for the educational travel company Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) on some of their aurora cruises along the Norwegian coast on one of the Hurtigruten ferry ships.

This time, as I was last autumn, I was on Hurtigruten’s flagship coastal ferry, the m/s Trollfjord.

Aurora over the Norwegian Sea #2 (Feb 27, 2019) — The Northern Lights over the Norwegian Sea south of the small fishing village of Oksfjord, from the Hurtigruten ferry ship the m/s Trollfjord on the northbound voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes. This was during a minor geomagnetic storm producing an all-sky aurora with a Kp Index however of no more Kp 3 – 4 this night. A break in the clouds allowed a glimpse of the Lights for about an hour at 11 pm. This is looking north. This is a single 1.6-second exposure at f/2 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 6400. Ship motion inevitably adds some star trailing.

Our tour group was treated to five fine nights with auroras, an unusually good take out of the 12-day round trip cruise from Bergen to Kirkenes and back to Bergen. Our first look, above, was on February 27, but through cloud.

Auroral Swirls over Båtsfjord, Norway — Swirls of auroral curtains over Båtsfjord, Norway while we were in port on the southbound portion of the Hurtigruten coastal cruise on the ms Trollfjord. This was March 1, 2019. The stars of Taurus and the Pleiades are at left; Cassiopeia at upper right. This is a single 0.8-second exposure at f/2 with the 15mm Venus Optics lens and Sony a7III at ISO 1600.

But after we reached the top end at Kirkenes and turned around for the southbound voyage, skies cleared remarkably. We had a wonderful four clear days and nights in a row, all with Northern Lights.

Auroral Swirls Overhed from the ms Trollfjord — Auroral curtains in an overhead coronal burst swirling at the zenith during a fine display on March 1, 2019, as seen from the deck of the Hurtigruten ferry ship the ms Trollfjord, while in port in Båtsfjord, Norway. The Big Dipper is at upper right; Cassiopeia at lower left, and Polaris in the centre amid the aurora. This is a single 1-second exposure at f/2 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 3200. It was taken from port with the ship stationary and amid the port lights.

The best show was March 1, and when we were in port in the northern coastal village of Båtsfjord. The Lights danced overhead in the best show I had seen from Norway.

Aurora over Skjervøy, Norway — The Northern Lights over the village of Skjervøy on the northern coast of Norway north of Tromsø. Taken from the deck of the Hurtigruten ship the ms Trollfjord while in port, March 2, 2019. Looking west with Cassiopeia at right and the Pleiades at left. This is a blend of two exposures: a long 4-second exposure for the sky and aurora, and a short 0.8-second exposure for the ground and city lights. All at f/2 with the 15mm Venus Optics lens and Sony a7III at ISO 800.

The next night we got a good show while we were in the port of Skjervøy.

As we continued south we emerged out from under the auroral oval zone, placing the Lights to the north, back in the direction we had come from.

A self-portrait on the back deck of the ms Trollfjord, southbound out of Berlevag this night and under the Northern Lights.

Aurora photographers and observers on the rear deck 9 area of the Hurtigruten ferry ship the ms Trollfjord on the southbound voyage along the Norwegian coast, on March 2, 2019. This is a single 1.6-second exposure at f/2 with the 15mm Venus Optics lens and Sony a7III at ISO 6400.

Curtains of Northern Lights over the Hurtigruten ferry ship the ms Trollfjord on March 1, 2019. This is a single 1.6-second exposure at f/2 with the 15mm Venus Optics lens and Sony a7III at ISO 10000.

A low arc of aurora late in the voyage south on March 4, 2019, our last sighting for the cruise, after we crossed the Arctic Circle. A single exposure at ISO 10000 due to the large motion of the ship. The smoke from the ship is at top, illuminated by the funnel lights that were not turned off this night.

An example of multiple concentric auroral curtains, here over the Norwegian coast on the southbound Hurtigruten ship ms Trollfjord on March 2, 2019. This is a single 1.6-second exposure at f/2 with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III at ISO 10000.

Equally spectacular in my mind were some of the sunsets and twilight skies we enjoyed as we sailed through the Lofoten Islands, including on our visit to the narrow Trollfjord fjord for which the ship is named.

Sunset from the Trollfjord — Sunset in Norway from the ms Trollfjord on the southbound voyage, on March 2, 2019.

Trollfjord at Twilight — The mouth of the Trollfjord in the Lofoten Islands, Norway, at twilight taken from the forward Deck 6 of the ms Trollfjord, the Hurtigruten ferry ship named for the narrow fjord. This is a 4-section handheld panorama with the Venus Optics 15mm lens at f/8 and Sony a7III camera at ISO 100. Stitched with ACR.

Alpenglow and Twilight on the Fjords — A panorama of the Raftsundet Strait at sunset with alpenglow on the peaks and evening twilight colours to the right at the sunset point. This was March 3, 2019 on the southbound voyage on the ms Trollfjord as we approached the Trollfjord itself. This is a 7-section panorama, handheld, with the Venus Optics 15mm lens and Sony a7III, stitched with ACR.

On our aurora nights I mostly shot “real-time” video of the Lights, using the low-light capability and 4K functions of the Sony a7III camera. The result is a music video linked to below.

The Northern Lights At Sea from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.

I hope you enjoy it. Do view it full-screen and at 4K resolution.

For details on this cruise (I’ll be on the October 10 trip this fall) see the Road Scholar page for this Arctic Skies trip. Autumn is a spectacular time in the fjords and along the coast, as the mountainsides are in fall colours.

Join me!

March 22, 2018

The Northern Lights from Norway

All-Sky Aurora from Norway #1

The skies of Norway provided superb nights of Northern Lights as I sailed the coast.

As I did last autumn, I was able to join a cruise along the Norwegian coast, instructing an aurora tour group from Road Scholar. We were on one of the Hurtigruten ferry ships that ply the coast each day, the m/s Nordnorge, on a 12-day trip from Bergen to Kirkenes at the top end of Norway, then back again to Bergen.

Purple Auroral Curtains in Twilight from Norway — Auroral curtains in twilight on March 14, 2018 from at sea north of Tromsø, Norway, on the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordnorge, with the curtains showing a purple tinge at the tops, likely from scattered blue sunlight mixing with the red oxygen colours. The Big Dipper is at centre in a view looking north. This is a single 2-second exposure with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 8000.

In all, we had three very clear nights, with good auroras on two of those nights. Several other nights had bright auroras but seen through broken cloud.

Aurora Watchers on m/s Nordnorge #1 — Aurora tourists taking in the sky show on March 14, 2018 from the aft deck of the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordnorge on the journey south, from a location north of Tromsø this night. This is a single 2-second exposure with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 8000.

All observing and photography is done from the ship deck as we sailed among the fjords and sounds along the coast.

Purple Auroral Curtains from Norway — Auroral curtains in twilight on March 14, 2018 from at sea north of Tromsø, Norway, on the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordnorge, with the curtains showing a purple tinge to the background sky, likely from scattered blue sunlight mixing with the red oxygen colours. The Big Dipper is at upper left; Orion is at far right; Leo is left of centre, in a view looking south. This is a single 2-second exposure with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 8000.

The best night was an all-sky display on March 14 seen from north of Tromsø as we sailed back south from our farthest north of 71° latitude.

All-Sky Aurora from Norway #3 — A sky-covering aurora on March 14, 2018, as seen from the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordnorge, as we sailed south toward Tromsø, Norway. The view is looking east. The curtains are converging to the zenith at top. This is a single 1.6-second exposure with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye lens at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 8000.

Earlier, on the trip north, we had a great night as the aurora danced over the Lofoten Islands and we entered the Trollfjord. There is no finer scenery on Earth for framing the Lights.

Entering Trollfjorden with Aurora — A scene from the Norwegian coast and the Loftoten Islands of the aurora over the entrance to the Trollfjorden fjord, from the forward deck of the Hurtigruten ferry ship the m/s Nordnorge. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at left. Vega (brightest) and Deneb are at lower right, high above the northern horizon from this latitude of 68° North. Taken March 10, 2018. I used the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200, for a 2-second exposure.

As is the custom, the captain enters the fjord by searchlight, a scene depicted below.

Entering Trollfjorden with Searchlights — A scene from the Norwegian coast and the Loftoten Islands of the aurora over the entrance to the Trollfjorden fjord, from the forward deck of the Hurtigruten ferry ship the m/s Nordnorge. The ship is using its searchlights to mark the entrance to the narrow fjord. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at left. Vega (brightest) and Deneb are at lower right, high above the northern horizon from this latitude of 68° North. Taken March 10, 2018. I used the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200, for a 2-second exposure.

I shot very few time-lapses on this trip (unlike my trip in October 2017, which you can see in a music video at a previous blog post).

However, here’s a short music video of two clips I did shoot, including a time-lapse of us approaching the Trollfjord entrance.

As we sailed south, we left the aurora behind. Our last look was of the arc of the auroral oval across the north, seen from south of Rorvik.

Panorama of the Auroral Oval from Norway — A 180° panorama of the sweep of the auroral oval, from due west, at left, to due east, at right, with due north near the image centre. Orion is just setting into the sea at far left. Cassiopeia is at centre. Deneb and Vega are the bright stars low in the sky and circumpolar shining just right of centre. I shot this on the evening of March 16, 2018 from at sea on the coast of Norway south of Rorvik, with the ship sailing south away from the aurora. This was from the aft deck of the m/s Nordnorge, one of the Hurtigruten ferry ships. The latitude was about 63° N. This is a panorama from 8 segments, stitched with PTGui, and shot with the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8, for a series of 1-second exposures at ISO 6400 with the Nikon D750.

However, for several nights prior we had been under the auroral oval and the Lights had danced for us over the sky.

Norway is one of the world’s best sites for seeing the Northern Lights – the “nordlys” – and taking a Hurtigruten cruise along the coast is a great way to see the Lights and incredible scenery that changes by the minute.

November 16, 2017

Sailing to the Northern Lights

Sailing to the Lights Title

I present a music video of time-lapses of the Northern Lights from Norway, shot from the ship the aptly named m/s Nordlys.

The Nordlys is one of many ferry ships in the Hurtigruten cruise line (the name means “fast route”) that ply the Norwegian coast, with daily departures from Bergen (at latitude 60° N) to Kirkenes at the top of Norway (at 71° N). At the top end of Norway you are under the auroral oval and almost always see some level of auroral activity, if skies cooperate.

This 11-day cruise was blessed with five clear nights with active auroras. I was serving as an instructor for a tour group of 30 from the U.S.-based Road Scholar tour company.

Sailing to the Northern Lights from Alan Dyer on Vimeo.

The final sequence is of the ship entering the Trollfjorden – a narrow fjord often entered in darkness under searchlight. This was a dramatic sight with the aurora dancing overhead.

For a selection of still images from this trip and from the second cruise I did immediately following, see my previous blog post, The Nordlys of Norway.

Technical Info:
All exposures were about 1 to 1.3 seconds only, to minimize blurring during each exposure, shot with the Nikon D750 at ISO 6400, and with mostly the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8.

One sequence is with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye at f/2.8. Intervals were 1 to 2 seconds, providing a rapid cadence.

In assembly I applied a 4-frame blur to smooth the frame-to-frame motion. All processing with Adobe Camera Raw and assembly with the Mac app Time-Lapse from MicroProjects.ca (an app no longer available – a pity).

Music is by the Hollywood soundtrack artists AudioMachine, and is used with permission under “social media” licence. It is the track “Above and Beyond” from their album Tree of Life.

November 10, 2017

The Nordlys of Norway

Nordlys Auroral Red Curtains #1

For the past three weeks I chased the “nordlys” – the Northern Lights – along the coast of Norway up to a latitude of 71° North.

As I type this blog our ship, the Hurtigruten ferry the m/s Nordlys, is rocking and rolling as we cross the Froy Sea off the southern coast of Norway on the way south to Bergen.

We’re completing a cruise up and down the Norwegian coast, the second of two consecutive 11-day cruises I took this autumn as an enrichment lecturer on aurora cruise tour packages offered by the U.S.-based Road Scholar tour company.

It’s been a superb chase up and down the coast – twice! – to catch the Lights. We got a total of 8 clear nights of aurora out of 22, not a bad tally for this time of year.

Here’s a gallery of images, all shot from the ship using a fast lens and high ISO speeds to keep exposures down to about 1 second to minimize blurring from the ship movement.

A participant in the Road Scholar aurora tour in October 2017 watches the Northern Lights from the aft deck of the m/s Nordlys on the Norway coast. The Big Dipper is at centre

Aurora tourists watch and photograph the Northern Lights from the deck of the m/s Nordlys in October 2017 on the coast of Norway.

Watching the Northern Lights from the deck of the m/s Nordlys on October 24, 2017 from the coast of Norway. This is a single exposure of 1 second with the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.

The Northern Lights exhibiting the classic pink colour on the lower edge of the curtains from glowing nitrogen molecules, in addition to the main green tint from oxygen. Taken from the Hurigruten ship the m/s Nordlys north of Tromsø on October 24, 2017. This is a single 1-second exposure with the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. Taken as part of a time-lapse sequence.

The aurora boralis over a bridge in Norway, as per the legend of “Bifrost,” the bridge between heaven and Earth in Norse mythology. Taken from the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordlys on October 23, 2017, on the journey between Svolvaer and Tromsø. Taken with the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400 for 1.6 seconds, as part of a 450-frame time-lapse.

The sweep of the auroral oval from a latitude of 70° north in the Barent’s Sea off the north coast of Norway, on October 26, 2017. The curtains exhibit a lower pink fringe from nitrogen. Taken from the forward deck of the m/s Nordlys This is a single 2-second exposure with the 12mm Rokinon full-frame fish-eye lens at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.

Auroral curtains from the deck of the m/s Nordlys on October 25, 2017, looking northeast toward the Big Dipper at centre. Arcturus is setting at left.

Auroral curtains from the deck of the m/s Nordlys on October 25, 2017, looking northeast toward the Big Dipper at right. Arcturus is setting a left of centre.

The Hurtigruten ship the m/s Kong Harold sailing south and apparently into the aurora, on the Norwegian coast, as we passed the ship as we sailed north.

The scene as the m/s Nordlys exits the narrow Trollfjorden fjord, with the ship’s spotlights lighting the walls of the narrow fjord and with the aurora dancing. Ahead lies the winter sky with Taurus and the Pleiades rising. This was a magical moment indeed, one of the best of the Norway cruise. This is a single 0.8 sec exposure with the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.

Aurora in the moonlight from a nearly Full Moon over the Barent’s Sea off the north coast of Norway, November 5, 2017. This was a very weak Kp 0 to Kp 1 display, yet still showed up in the moonlight. The Moon was in Taurus, with the Pleiades at above the Moon and the Aldebaran to the left of the Moon. This is a single 0.5-second exposure with the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. Taken from the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordlys.

A dim but photogenic aurora on November 7, from the coast of Norway on the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordlys, in a view looking south to Pegasus and Andromeda, and over off-shore islands. The rising waning Moon off frame to the left illuminates the sky and landscape. This is a single 1-second exposure with the Sigma 14mm Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.

Aurora in the moonlight from a nearly Full Moon over the Barent’s Sea off the north coast of Norway, November 5, 2017. This was a very weak Kp 0 to Kp 1 display, yet still showed up in the moonlight. The Moon is off frame to the right. The Big Dipper is left of centre — we are looking almost due north. Taken from Deck 5, port side, of the Hurtigruten ship the m/s Nordlys This is a single 0.5-second exposure with the 14mm Sigma Art lens at f/1.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.

A wisp of aurora appears in a break in the clouds as the m/s Nordlys enters Trollfjorden fjord in the Lofoten Islands in Norway, on November 8, 2017. It was actually raining when I took this shot but a major auroral storm was underway and we got a brief glimpse of a curtain as we entered this spectacular and narrow fjord. Then the rain clouds closed in. The bright lights are the ship’s searchlights lighting the walls of the narrow fjord. The white at top is the ship’s smoke. This was from the aft deck looking astern. This was with the 12mm Rokinon fish-eye lens at f/2.8 for 1.6 seconds with the Nikon D750 at ISO 6400.

One of the most memorable nights was on the first cruise when we sailed into the narrow Trollfjorden fjord in the dark with just the ship’s spotlights lighting the fjord walls only metres away from the ship. Above us, the Northern Lights danced. Unforgettable!

The Hurtigruten line operates daily sailings up and down the coast, from Bergen to Kirkenes, up into the auroral oval, which in this part of the world lies at a high latitude above the Arctic Circle. However, the warm gulf stream current keeps the water from freezing and the coast far milder than would be expected for such a high latitude.

This is a trip that should be on the bucket list for all aurora chasers.