Friday, December 30, 2016

Another lap completed

Another year is coming to an end and planet Earth has completed another lap around the Sun. This year has been exciting in many ways with the release of my new book Light-year - a year of light and the release of 5 stamps with my Northern light photos.

As for astronomical events we got to see a Mercury transit in May and later in the summer I went further up north above the arctic circle to capture the midnight summer solstice Sun. The Northern lights season kicked off quite early this year and I did manage to find the the Northern light factory. Also we had an exceptional super moon in November and for me the year ended with a real highlight, seeing a lunar fog bow, such a beauty!

I wish you all a happy new year and lots of clear skies in 2017!

A small planet flying through space and time.

























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Monday, December 19, 2016

Rare lunar fog bow with Northern lights

Throughout the years I've seen lots of different phenomena in the sky but one that have been on my bucket list for quite some time is the very rare lunar fog bow. I've seen photos of it but I've never seen it in real life, until now. This Saturday turned out to be my lucky night. I hadn't planed to go out at all but after having a look to the north a saw some faint Northern Lights so I decided to head out to see if the activity would increase.

After an hour or so I decided to drive to another location and after parking the car I started walking on the frozen shoreline of lake Storsjön. After walking a couple of hundred of meters I looked up and could clearly see this lunar fog bow. I immediately stopped and pulled out my camera from my backpack to start taking some photos of it. While shooting I felt so excited and happy to finally see this beautiful white fog bow, it was more beautiful than I ever excepted. And as a bonus there were some Northern Lights visible at the same time.

After a while and while the camera was exposing I wanted to text a very good friend of mine that I was seeing my first ever lunar fog bow. While typing I could see my fingers shiver of excitement and I once again realized how much these beautiful phenomena of nature actually means to me.

A fog bog is pretty much the same as a rainbow. It's located in the opposite direction of the Moon and it's height correlates to the height of the Moon in the same way a rainbows height correlates to the height of the Sun. Fog bows are almost white with faint reds on the outside and blues inside. The colors are so washed out because the bow in each color is very broad and the colors overlap.

My first ever lunar fog bow

















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Saturday, December 10, 2016

Upcoming Geminid meteor shower

During one of my recent exposures of the Northern lights I caught this big meteor burning up in the atmosphere. Seeing these really bright meteors is always a joy and hopefully we'll see more of them now when we're closing in on the Geminid meteor shower that peaks on December 14th.

























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