Sunset over Åreskutan

Photo number 4 in my 2014 recap.

Besides moonrises and moonsets I also did a lot of sunrises and sunsets. Here is a shot from April that shows an obscured Sun about to set behind Åreskutan, the biggest ski resort in Sweden.

Strawberry Moonlings

Photo number 3 in my 2014 recap.

During 2014 I shot lots and lots of moonrises. Each time I do a shot like this I try to come up with new ideas on that to illustrate. The full moon of June is called Strawberry Moon so that gave me some ideas to work with. It later tuned out that my models had a much better idea for this shoot. I gave them free hands to come up with something and they sure did.

What you see in this photo are the legendary Strawberry Moonlings. They live deep in the forest and only come out once a year and that is during the full moon in June when the seek out villages and plunder them of all their Strawberries. Here you can see them watching down on a small village.

In the top left corner you can see a closeup shot of these rare scary creatures.

A new day begins

This is photo no 2 in my 2014 recap. Taken just minutes before the Sun rose above the horizon in January. It was a cold beautiful winter morning. In the photo the Moon is in waning gibbous phase and the sky is colored pink and blue.

The blue part is whats called Earth's Shadow. That's the shadow that the Earth itself casts on its atmosphere.

The pink part of the sky is called the Belt of Venus. The name Belt of Venus is not connected with the planet Venus; the Belt of Venus is part of Earth's upper atmosphere which is illuminated by the setting or rising sun. It is visible either after the sun ceases to be visible (at sunset) or before the sun becomes visible (at sunrise).

The storm is coming

The coming days I will look back on 2014 and show you some of my favorite moments from this year.

We'll start of with this is photo from June. It was one of the most exciting weather fronts I ever seen and it swept in over Östersund with thunderstorms and heavy rain. This photo was taken just a few minutes before the rain started. You can see the rain pouring down in the background.

I really like the structures in the clouds, it almost looks like something out of a SciFi movie.

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 :-)

Unusual Sunset

For some time I've had an idea that I would like to shoot a scene during sunset and work with silhouettes against the solar disc. In October of 2014 I finally got around to do it and I called up a couple of friends to see if they were willing to do some acting.

I originally hadn't planed to use sword fighters, but I thought it could be an interesting concept to have some theatrical action in the scene. My two friends are trained amateur stuntmen and used to handle swords so I felt confident that no one was going to get hurt.

A lot of time went into location scouting, I wanted a hill clear of any big trees and buildings and with an even surface so that the action would be clearly visible and the actors easily could move around.

An interesting part in the movie is at the 01:30 mark when you see the exhalation lit up by the Sun.


Music Koke Nunez Gomez - Soul of Warrior

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.

The Moon and planet Jupiter

This morning the Moon and planet Jupiter (The little bright dot next to the church tower) had an relatively close encounter, at least from our point of view here on Earth.

The distance to the Moon and Jupiter varies, this morning planet Jupiter was about 1,800 times further away than the Moon. It took the light from the Moon about 1 second to reach my camera, but the light from Jupiter had traveled for almost 40 minutes.

So watching pictures like this is like traveling with a time machine. The old Church tower is present time, watching the Moon we have traveled 1 second back in time and when watching Jupiter we have traveled 40 minutes back in time.

So when this light left Jupiter, I was back home and enjoyed my breakfast. It's things like this that make space so cool :-)

Moonlight Skating

A couple of nights ago me and two friends of mine went ice skating on a frozen lake near Östersund. This night was really magic, no wind, lots of ice crystals in the air and an almost full Moon that shined upon us during our two hours out on the ice. To the right of the Moon you can see the constellation of Orion and down left of the Moon you can see planet Jupiter shining brightly.

Nights like these are almost to good to be true.


Music Stellardrone - Ascent, used under Creative Common Licence

Honored by the city of Östersund

Imorgon väntar en spännande dag. Då ska jag få ta emot ett hedersdiplom från Östersunds kommun för att under året ha "gjort något alldeles speciellt för att sätta Östersund på kartan". Motiveringen lyder "För hans fantastiska bilder och filmer som fått stor internationell uppmärksamhet och som använts av bland annat NASA samt musikgruppen Coldplay."

Det känns fantastiskt hedrande att få denna utmärkelse och samtidigt väldigt inspirerande att fortsätta göra det jag älskar att göra.

Läs mer på Östersund kommuns hemsida

Prisutdelningen sker imorgon kl. 17:30 på Jamtli.

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Honored by the city of Östersund

Tomorrow I will be honored by the city of Östersund for having done something special during the year to put the city of Östersund on the world map.

I'm being honored with this reward for "His amazing photos and films that have received international attention and used by NASA, Coldplay among others."

I'm very honored to receive this award and it's a big inspiration for continue doing what I love to do.