The Milky Way and the Northern Lights

During this time of the year, the Milky Way stretches from North East to North West in the sky, perfect position to combine our galaxy with a faint Aurora. If the Aurora is to bright and active, it will block the light from the Milky Way. This panoramic photo I took last week is a perfect example of what a faint Aurora and the Milky Way looks like together.

Nikon D850 with Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8
Exposure: 20 sec. ISO 1600 @ f/2.8

Season finale

The dark season is ending and we're running out of darkness here in the northern hemisphere. This panoramic shot from last night shows a beautiful colored night sky filled with the Milky Way and the Northern Lights. As always I feel a bit sad that the stars is fading away for and I will miss nights like this during the summer. On the other hand, the bright summer nights is truly magic with their colors, they sure make a great substitute for the loss of the starry nights.

So this will most likely be my last Milky Way with Aurora shot for this season, but what a great finale it was! Se you on the other side Milky Way!

Click here to buy this photo as a print.

Nikon D800E with Nikon AF-S 14-24 mm f/2.8
12 shot panorama with 20 sec. ISO 3200 at f/2.8

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Real time Northern Lights

Last night we did get some really nice Northern Lights and at 20:45 UT we did get this activity as shown in the video. Both video sequences was shot using a Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24 mm f/1.4 lens. Exposure was 1/25 sec. at 24 mm f/1.4 with ISO 25,600. Cover photo was also taken using the Nikon D5 and 24 mm f/1.4 lens.



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Northern Lights wedding photography

About a year ago I was asked if I would like to do a wedding photography at night. The wedding was in February this year so we had plenty of time to do the photoshoot but it didn't happen until January this year. But it was worth the wait, it was so much fun and the couple was really great to work with.

Here are a couple of shots I took during that night. Both shots were taken using my Nikon D800E and a Nikon AF-S 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens.

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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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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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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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The Northern Light Factory

All of a sudden there it was, the Northern Light factory. The search is over.

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Colorful Northern Lights

Last night I had a visit from a Swedish photography magazine (Fotosidan Magasin) doing an article about me and my work. We were lucky to get a clear and dark sky and we even managed to get some colorful Northern Lights. At first we could hardly see the aurora but for a short while it turned into some faint pillars dancing across the sky. To the naked eye we could barley make out any colors, the human eye isn't that good at seeing colors in the dark. Fortunately our cameras doesn't have the same problem, they are very good at seeing colors in low light since they can capture light for a longer period of time.

Return of the Northern Lights

Yes! Tonight I got to see my first Northern Lights for this season. Finally the season begins after several months of waiting. In a couple of weeks we will have astronomical nights so then the display will be even better.

The landscape is lit up by a 96% waxing gibbous Moon.

Perseid, Aurora and NLC - Astronomy Picture Of the Day at NASA

Today I'm featured as Astronomy Picture Of the Day at NASA with my photo of a Perseid, Aurora and Noctilucent Clouds. It was taken during last year's Perseid meteor shower. That night was the first night of the season I saw the Northern Lights and it was also the last night I saw some Noctilucent clouds for that summer. This astrophotogrpaher hat trick will be hard for me to repeat but one can always hope for another chance for the upcoming Perseid shower that peaks tomorrow.

Perseid, Northern lights and Noctilucent clouds

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May the 4th be with you!

Happy Star Wars day everyone and May the 4th be with you!

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

My Northern Light photos become stamps

I'm extremely proud and honored to announce that the Swedish postal service (PostNord) will be releasing 5 of my Northern Lights photos as international stamps later this year.

I was contacted by PostNord in December of 2014. They told me that they were planning to release a series of international stamps on the theme of the Northern Lights. They had been in contact with Rymdstyrelsen, the Swedish National Space Board, who told PostNord about my work. The selection process and the design has been going on during 2015 and now the stamps are ready for publication on November 10, 2016.

Here are all five stamps that are being released.

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Green sky as seen from inside of a green

Here's a photo I took back in October this year. It's a sky filled with bright Northern Lights as seen from inside of a golf hole on a green. A green sky as seen from inside of a green.

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Aurora road

The aurora season continues to deliver amazing auroras. A few nights ago we had another fantastic show with lots of activity both along the horizon and with a beautiful corona. Here is one shot taken when the aurora was very active and colorful.

Flaming Aurora

On the 26th of August in 2015 there was a fantastic Aurora display over great parts of the northern hemisphere.

Here in Östersund, Sweden, we got some really nice northern lights throughout the night. This was one of the most flaming and pulsating auroras I've seen. For several minutes I just lay on the ground watching the corona shift color and shape very rapidly. The real time footage you see of the corona in this video is a good representation of what I saw.

Sit back and enjoy 3 minutes of aurora magic.

Lazy Sunday Aurora

The recent days there has been lot's of activity on the Sun. Sunspot region AR2403 has been putting on a great show with lots of M-classed flares but now it looks like it's decaying. Some of these flares has generated some strong auroras in different parts of the world. This photo is from last Sunday and show some fading aurora. The activity was much higher during daytime here in Sweden.

Now the huge sunspot region AR2403 is slowly turning away from Earth and chances of aurora drops until we get another active region facing us. There are still some chances for aurora the coming days so keep an eye to the north.

The Aurora season has arrived

Finally the dark nights are back and it's a joy to once again be able to enjoy the night sky. The last few nights we have had some really nice aurora displays. The sky is still a bit to bright but for every day its rapidly getting darker.

This photo was taken last night and shows a beautiful aurora arc with some nice curtains to the left. There's also some purple colors in there but they aren't that prominent when the sky is still pretty blue and not black.

I hope we'll get another great aurora season but the number of aurora displays are expected to drop. It's the Sun's activity (sunspots, flares and coronal mass ejections) that causes aurora.

The Sun's activity has a periodic solar cycle of nearly 11 years and in 2014 we passed the latest solar maximum so the solar activity and therefore aurora is expected to drop over the years to come.

Aurora, NLC and a Perseid/Bolide

Me and a couple of friends went out to watch the yearly Perseid meteor shower. After 01:00 Swedish summer time we started to see some faint aurora above some really nice NLC. This is the first aurora I've seen for this season and a new record for me seeing an aurora as early as 13th of August.

In the shot you can also see some Noctilucent clouds and a bright Perseid.

A bright Perseid over some aurora and Noctilucent clouds

Here's a collection of Perseids I captured last night.

Several bright Perseids in this composite image

After a while watching the aurora I started filming the beautiful sky, I turned around and headed back to our campfire and kept filming. Suddenly I saw how the sky turned green in the corner of my eye and I got to see one of the biggest bolide I ever seen and to my luck I got it on this film.

Sorry for the wind noise in the beginning and the bad language in the end :-)



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