We started our Saturday with a walk at Telegrafbukta. It was about 12:30 and the sun was setting. We are now officially in “mørketid” – the dark time, but as you can see the sky still gets light and the colours are very pretty!

After our walk, we cycled to the city centre to have a look around the shops. I knew the Christmas lights had been put up, so I brought my camera to get some pictures. Tromsø is so pretty at Christmas time 🙂

In the evening, I was hoping for some northern lights activity. Although the forecast wasn’t looking too promising, at least the skies were clear! I kept an eye on the webcam, which is very convenient if you don’t want to stand outside (freezing!) all night. At first a faint green glow appeared on the horizon, but then just before 20:00, it exploded across the whole sky! We quickly grabbed warm clothes, camera gear, and a thermos of hot chocolate and jumped in the car. The photos below are taken along Ersfjorden. The lights were dancing all over the sky, it was hard to decide where to point the camera!

After a while, the activity died down, and we decided to drive a bit further. We took the road towards Sommarøy, which goes over a very dark mountain pass. The photos below are taken from there. The northern lights had become very diffuse, even though they were still filling the entire sky. On a long exposure (25 seconds) the green still comes out, but to the naked eye it did not have as much colour. While I took the panorama below, some more active northern lights appeared on the horizon, but it didn’t last very long.

When the hot chocolate was finished, and our feet started to get cold, we decided it was time to go home. Click here to watch an animation of the northern lights last night (wait for the second half of the video) – quite impressive!