Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

The northern lights were very active this week, and last Wednesday I decided to go aurora hunting with my colleague Gunnar. It was the last day with nice weather, and a front (with clouds) was moving in from the southwest. We decided to drive northeast and hope we could beat the clouds – when we left it was already overcast in Tromsø. Just after passing Ramfjorden, the skies were clearing and suddenly aurora was dancing all over the sky. We found a place to stop and quickly got our tripods out…

It was a pretty place, and the moonlight was brightening up the landscape nicely. We were right next to the road however, and every now and then passing cars would put their full beams on, spoiling our photos 😉 The clouds were also catching up, so after about 15 minutes we decided to move on and find a better place to take photos.

We drove to Lakselvdalen, a beautiful valley surrounded by impressive mountains. It was the perfect foreground for aurora pictures, and there was no traffic at all, so we just stopped and stood in the middle of the road to take photos. We hardly managed to get one good picture though, as suddenly the aurora disappeared. We waited for a while, but it didn’t come back.

We drove on, and stopped at the end of the valley, where were hoping to have a good view over the fjord. We had to pass a house, and dogs started barking and people yelling… but they turned out to be very friendly and chatty, and they let us pass through their land to get to the shore. They even asked if we wanted the little cabin by the water heated so we could sit in comfort 😀

It was a pretty place, and I can only imagine how nice it is to use the hot tub while watching the aurora… but the aurora itself did not come back. We took some photos of the Lyngen Alps across the fjord before calling it a night.

It was a nice trip, even if the aurora didn’t cooperate as much as we hoped 🙂 A day later, I was on the night shift and saw the most incredible aurora at 4 in the morning. It was all over the sky and moved around very fast, I had never seen it quite like that. Pity I couldn’t take any photos. Since that night, it’s been way too cloudy to see anything, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to improve anytime soon…

The weather is perfect this weekend: not a cloud in the sky 🙂 Unfortunately I am working all weekend, but last night I went out into the moonlit night to take some photos. The northern lights were out, but not very bright. Still, I enjoyed discovering a new spot for taking photos (conveniently close to home 🙂 ). There was no wind, everything was calm and quiet and beautiful…

I’ll have to come back to this place when the aurora is more active… perhaps tonight? 🙂

Yesterday I was pleased to see it was still light when I left work at 16:15 – the days are getting long 🙂 I went to buy food, and arrived home at about 17:00. Getting out of the car, I looked up at the sky and to my surprise, the aurora was out even though the sky was still very light! I quickly grabbed my camera and our brand new fisheye lens (Samyang 8mm f/3.5). It’s a tricky lens: manual focus and manual aperture setting. I drove to Telegrafbukta where I found a gale blowing the snow around. I didn’t dress very well so I was soon freezing, and the wind was so strong it made my (very sturdy) tripod move. Not the best conditions to try out this new lens, but I had no choice as Paul took my other wide-angle lens to Austria :D.

Anyway, despite all this, I am quite happy with the results. It’s fun to be able to capture the aurora right overhead. The fisheye lens gives extremely distorted images, I might try to play with some software that can correct this, but I haven’t had time yet.

It was so impressive to see the aurora dancing overhead while it was still light. I didn’t last very long, after 30 minutes I was fed up with the wind and the cold, and I went home. Not long after, clouds rolled in and ended the show.