The Full Moon and Frösö Church Photo

Last week during the full Moon of November I had planned to take a photo of the full Moon rising behind the 800 year old Frösö church. I got this idea in May this year when I was wandering about on Andersön, a nature reserve located on an island 5 km Southwest of Frösön. Back in May I did notice that Frösö church was clearly visible and that it would make a nice foreground against a full Moon.

Frösö Church as seen from Andersön in May 2018.

When I returned home I started planning my shot and look through different software to see when the Moon should rise behind the church. The first date that popped up was November 22nd 2018.

So after waiting for 6 months, the time had finally come, now it was all down to the weather, and this time I was lucky to see clear skies with pretty good atmospheric conditions. This is the final photo.

Final photo of the full Moon behind Frösö church.

The still photo was taken using my Nikon D850 on my Nikon AF-S 600mm f/4 D IF-ED II lens. The real time footage of the Moon rising was shot using my Nikon D500 and Nikon AF-S 300mm f/2.8 D IF-ED with a Nikon AF-S TC-20E III teleconverter.

Here's a film from the 22nd of  November showing how I took the photo.



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Best Swedish astronomy picture of the year 2016

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that my photo of the full moon rising above the mountains in Jämtland, Sweden, won first price as best Swedish astronomy picture of the year 2016. The contest is organized by the Swedish astronomy magazine Populär Astronomi.

The photo was taken on the 16th of August last year. It was taken near the small village Handöl in Jämtland. It was a calm and warm late summer evening and I had planed to take photos of the full moon rise. Just after the top of the moon was above the horizon I saw that it would touch this beautiful mountain formation an re-positioned myself to have the moon touching the mountain top in a way that it looked like it was about to roll down the hill.

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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.

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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.

Orion Constellation

One of my favorite constellations is Orion, here in the northern hemisphere is best visible during the winter. Here's a shot from march this year showing a panoramic view to the South West. It's a 2x2 shot panorama. It was taken in a small village called Rörvattnet in Jämtland, Sweden. This village is located in a very remote location with a beautiful dark sky which makes it perfect for astrophotography.

Orion Constellation 

Annotated version

Historic solar halo

Here's a shot from last week showing a 22° solar halo over the old church in Oviken, Jämtland, Sweden. The old church was first built during the middle ages and was then rebuilt as it looks today in the 18th century.

Halo over the old church of Oviken, Jämtland, Sweden

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June starts off with a halo

Yesterday, on the 1st of June, this beautiful halo emerged for a couple of hours during early afternoon. I was out scouting for new photo locations when I saw that a faint solar halo started to form. I drove to this church to get a nice foreground together with the halo. This is the new church of Oviken, Jamtland, Sweden. It was built in 1903 - 1905.

Solar halo over the new church of Oviken.

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Viking sunset

Last night I got the opportunity to shoot two vikings during the sunset. These guys are experienced actors and it was a blast working with them throughout the night. The light was just amazing and I don't think I ever experienced a session that has resulted in so many good images, almost every shot is epic in some way.

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

Hiking for the full moon

Today I went hiking with my family in a beautiful mountain area here in Jämtland, Sweden. We had a great time and the views got was really amazing now when the mountain tops are snow covered.

Later during the afternoon it was time for the full moon to rise. My wife and my two kids got to model while watching the moon rise above the horizon. I planned the shot during the day and everything look great for the evening. Just an hour before the Moon was about to rise, the clouds started to move in from west and the sky was quickly covered.

I was a bit worried that we wouldn't be able to do the shot but as you can see the sky was clear to the east just enough for the full moon to be visible. The moon is somewhat deformed in the lower half, that's due to atmospheric refraction.

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.

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...

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.