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

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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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

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.

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...

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 :-)

Aurora long exposure

This is twos photo that shows the Aurora activity over a longer period of time in the same image.

The first photo was taken on October 2nd in 2013. It was shot at lake Storsjön near Östersund, Sweden. The black silhouette by the horizon is the island of Andersön, it has the shape of someone lying down. Apart from the aurora and star trails, you can also see an airplane, a meteor and lights from cars that passed by. You can watch the Aurora in motion here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YjCIoPHT0U

The second photo was also taken at lake Storsjön. It was taken on August 28th in 2014. Here you can see the island of Frösön in the background and a bridge leading to the island.

Aurora Cupcake - Astronomy Picture Of the Day at NASA

Today my photo Aurora Cupcake is featured as Astronomy Picture Of the Day at NASA.

It's a photo I took on the night of September 1 in 2014 during a quite strong aurora. It shows a double auroral oval over the city lights of Östersund and the village of Ås. While editing the photo I realized it looked like a green cupcake with a purple top. Our Milky Way Galaxy looks like some galaxy topping is being added to a already delicious cupcake.

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The Aurora season is here

Last night I got to see my first Aurora for the season, two days earlier than last year but five days later than my personal record from 2011 (August 14th).

It was a faint aurora that lasted for several hours and as you can see it was quite cloudy. The orange/yellow clouds to the right are clouds that are lit up by the street lights from the city of Östersund and Frösön.

Finally the dark nights are here so we can enjoy the auroras ahead and let us hope that there will be lots of them during the coming season.

The Little Astrophotographer - Revisited

The last few days I've been going through some of my old photos. Today I visited January 2012 and found my photos from an amazing night with a beautiful aurora. Back then I made a 360° panoramic image showing the entire aurora and projected this as a small planet. I named it The Little Astrophotographer after the well know fairy tale The Little Prince. My little planet photo looks much like that book cover.

I've reworked all the data from scratch and rebuild the little planet image. This time it's much cleaner from noise and I think it has more appealing colors. Just for fun, I also did try a new projection of the old data, I really like the shape of the curved horizon.