Dreaming of Aurora

Last night, shortly after midnight, I was just about to go to bed. My plan was to get up early to take photos of the thin crescent moon that was coming up over Östersund in the early hours. While brushing my teeth I looked out the window toward north and could see a large but faint auroral oval.

I quickly finished brushing my teeth and went out and took a picture to better see how active aurora looked. 5 minutes later I was sitting in the car on the way out in the wilderness facing winds of 15 m/s and -5 degrees Celsius.

When I stepped out of the car into the darkness, I felt the cold hard winds and I had a hard time not to think of that warm bed and a good night's sleep I just traded away for this. More than 4 hours later and cold to the bone I could finally crawl down in that warm bed. But what a night it had been, totally worth it. With several hours of intense aurora experience on my mind I fell asleep dreaming of aurora.

And what about that early crescent moon you wounder? Zzzzz...

Winter Solstice Aurora

Last night we had some faint aurora over Östersund. The expected solar wind reach us later in the morning so hopefully we'll see stronger aurora tonight, if the weather holds up. So keep an eye on the sky to the north tonight, it might get green :-)

Geminid meteor shower with aurora

Last night I was out watching the yearly Geminid meteor shower. I only counted for 15 meteors during my two hour stay. It was so windy I had to take shelter most of the time and I couldn't see the entire sky. My camera did catch a couple of faint meteors but not bright enough to be visible in this 90 minute exposure composite image.

Hopefully we'll have another good night tonight and a new chance to see some meteors.