Crescent Moons

Here's a couple of photos showing a crescent Moon during two consecutive mornings. In the first photo the Moon is 4% lit and since the sky is quite dark it's possible to see the unlit part of the Moon due to so called Earthshine. Earthshine occurs when sunlight reflects off the Earth's surface and illuminates the unlit portion of the Moon’s surface.

Nikon D850 and Nikon AF-S 300mm f/4E PF ED VR

This morning, the moon was 28.6 days old of its 29.5-day lunar phase and only 1% illuminated. Such thin crescent moon is hard to see with the naked eye, but with a pair of binoculars or a camera with a little higher magnification, it's much easier to see.

Nikon D850 and Nikon AF-S 300mm f/2.8 D IF-ED
 with a TC-20E III teleconverter.

Follow my work in social media
https://www.instagram.com/Astrofotografen
https://www.facebook.com/FotografGoranStrand
https://twitter.com/Astrofotografen

New exhibition

Today my new exhibition premiered in Badhusparken in Östersund, Sweden. It's six photos, each measuring 2.4 x 2.4 meters so these are really big prints. It's always so exciting to see photos come alive in such a big format and. The exhibition runs until Sunday the 12th of February.

Follow my work in social media
http://www.facebook.com/FotografGoranStrand
http://www.instagram.com/Astrofotografen
http://twitter.com/Astrofotografen

Reflected ice skating

On the 19th of December last year, I got to see the most perfect reflection of my home city Östersund I’ve ever seen. During the night, it had been raining and the water together with the flat thin ice formed a perfect gigantic mirror. When these two ice skaters passed by it felt like they were floating in the air, so unreal and beautiful.

This photo and five other of my photos will be exhibited in Badhusparken Östersund starting this Saturday. All six photos are 2.4 x 2.4 meters and the exhibition ends on the 12th of February.

Water on ice creates a perfect mirror.

Follow my work in social media

http://www.facebook.com/fotografgoranstrand

http://www.instagram.com/Astrofotografen

http://twitter.com/Astrofotografen

Full moon of October

Full moon of October rises behind the Arctura building in Östersund, Sweden. On top of this building there's an restaurant, I hope they enjoyed the view of the moon.

Follow my work in social media

http://www.facebook.com/fotografgoranstrand
http://www.instagram.com/Astrofotografen
http://twitter.com/Astrofotografen

Milky Way photography close to a city

I often get asked if you need a really dark location to be able to see and shoot the Milky Way. My answer to that question is usually no, it all depends on the amount of light pollution in your area.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a location just 8 km from down town Östersund (A city with a population of 60,000 in the municipality). I could see the Milky Way with my naked eye as a faint band of stars stretching across the sky above our heads. In this photo down town Östersund is to the left just behind me and my friend. The bright light source by the horizon to the right is the setting Moon.

As for shooting the Milky Way you can see by this photo that some light pollution is OK as long as the Milky Way doesn't stretch through it. When editing the photos I was surprised on how low above the horizon the Milky Way was visible, despite being that close to the Moon.

The image below is a panorama made of 12 photos each shot with the same exposure settings, 20 sec. ISO 1600 using a Nikon D810A and a Nikon AF-S 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens at 14 mm f/2.8.

The Milky Way over the city of Östersund

Follow my work in social media
http://www.facebook.com/fotografgoranstrand
http://www.instagram.com/Astrofotografen
http://twitter.com/Astrofotografen

Solar halo

Today I've been hanging out with a beautiful reflected solar halo, the first halo for this summer season. It varied in strength throughout the day but I could never see any trace of the 46° halo or arcs. These 22° halos are quite common but for them to reflect in water they need to bee quite strong as it was today. Read more about halos at Atmospheric Optics.

Aurora Arc - Astronomy Picture Of the Day at NASA

Today I'm featured as Astronomy Picture Of the Day at NASA with my photo Aurora Arc. It was taken on the 12th of April 2016 at 23:20 UTC just 2 km outside of down town Östersund. It's a panorama made from 6 photos (Two rows with 3 photos each) covering 180° of the sky.

Earlier that night me and a couple of friends had been out watching for the Aurora but the clouds blocked our view. Later at night when I was on my way home I stopped by this pier to take one last look and suddenly this really bright perfectly shaped arc emerged. It lasted for 5-10 minutes before fading away.

Annotated version

One year in Östersund

During the recent year I've been taking photos over Östersund on a regular basis from the exact same location. This is my biggest and longest project so far. My plan was to take an image every week to get a smooth animation but I didn't quite manage that. The animation consists of 36 photos. During some periods the landscape didn't change much so I've excluded some images to get a better flow of the changes in the landscape. Hope you like it.



Music - "Virtues Inherited Vices Passed On" by Chris Zabriskie

I will miss the night

In a couple of days the astronomical nights will end here in Östersund, Sweden. It is always with mixed emotions I see the nights gets shorter and brighter. One part of me will miss the stars and the auroras, but another part of me really loves the bright summer nights.

Last night I was out on the ice of lake Storsjön and it was a fantastic night. No wind at all and a couple of degrees Celsius below zero. There was a faint aurora to the north just below the Milky Way and to the north west I could see planet Venus below the Pleiades.

I will really miss nights like this until they return in early September.

Fly me to the moon

Last night there was a beautiful crescent moon hanging over the island of Frösön. The dark side of the moon is visible because it's lit by whats called earthlight, that's light from the Sun being reflected from Earth onto the moon.

Down to the right of the moon you can see two bright spots just above the treeline, that's planet Venus and Mars. Venus is the brighter one and Mars is a little bit fainter. You can also see that Mars is more red in it's color. Quite amazing that you're able to see the colors of the planets at a focal length of only 24 mm.

The light streaks through the image is a helicopter that flew by during my exposure.

Chasing Aurora

If read my last post Dreaming of Aurora you can read about the story behind this movie. This is my first try with real time aurora filming and I learnt a lot during the late hours of this cold night. It was almost pitch black so I'm very impressed that the camera manages to pick up so much data in the aurora. You can find some still photos in the end of the movie that was shot while filming.

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...

Great Lake Ice

This is a video that I shot on December 12 last year. It was a really cold winter day with temperatures below -20°C. I was out during the whole day and shot the ice forming on lake Storsjön. It was fantastic to see the first ray of lights from the Sun hit the ice covered landscape and colors it in its warm colors. Hopefully this video will show you what I experienced that day.


Music Chris Zabriskie - Clynder Three from the album Cylinders.

Planet Jupiter and the Moon in close encounter

During the last three days, planet Jupiter and the Moon has been quite close to each other. Here are three photos I took of them together.

The last photo was taken using a focal length of 110 mm and in the original photo you can clearly see three of four of Jupiter's biggest moons, the so called Galilean moons. The 4 moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. When I took this photo Io (the innermost of the four) was behind planet Jupiter and therefore not visible.

In the upper left corner of that photo I've included a 100% crop of the original image of the area around Jupiter. As you can see both the planet and the moons are formed as short lines rather than spheres/dots, that's due to the long exposure of 8 seconds. During these 8 seconds, Earth rotation makes the entire sky move and this movement is recorded by the camera when using a longer focal length.

Photo taken February 2, 2015

Photo taken February 3, 2015

Photo taken February 4, 2015

The Hidden City

Last night there were a very thick fog covering the city of Östersund. In this photo you can see the fog lit up from beneath by the city lights. It's very interesting to see all the different colors from different type of light sources.

One of the most known landmarks of Östersund is Rådhuset (City hall) and you can see the tower/spire of that building sticking up through the fog in center of the photo.

The guardian angel of the Moon

This is a photo I took back in November of 2014. I was out to capture the sunset and on my way home I found this rather unique composition. The statue is placed at Frösö kyrka and this night the crescent Moon was perfectly aligned for the angel to very gently pick it up with.

Little Solar Halo Observer

Yesterday a beautiful solar halo was visible around Östersund. Me and my son went out watch it over the frozen lake Storsjön. It was his first full circle solar halo so it was a special moment, also for his daddy :)

Light Pillars over Östersund

Last night there were some beautiful light pillars visible over Östersund. It's been a while since I last saw this phenomena but tonight they where clearly visible.

Things to look forward to in 2015

A new year starts today, a year filled with exciting astronomical events to look forward to. In this photo you can see the Great Lake Monster looking at a solar halo, an event we hopefully see more of during the winter ahead.

First out is comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2), it will soon be visible here in northern Sweden and I'm really looking forward to see and take photos of it. It should double in brightness by mid-January 2015. This puts it just above the threshold for naked-eye visibility and makes it possible to record the comet using only a camera--no telescope required.

One of the biggest astronomical events during 2015 is the total solar eclipse on the 25th of March. In the northern Scandinavia more than 90% of the sun will be covered. To see the total solar eclipse you need to travel to Svalbard or Faroe Islands.

Another great event is the Blue Moon on July 31. A Blue Moon is when there are 2 full moons in one Month. A full moon occurs roughly every 29.5 days so on rare occasions there are two full moons in one month, then the second full moon is called a Blue Moon.

Also NASA's New Horizons will arrive at Pluto, lunar eclipse, meteor showers and more. I'll keep you posted as we're getting closer to them during the year.

Happy new year and clear skies!

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.