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.



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

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.

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

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

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

The Northern Light Factory

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

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

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.

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.

Follow my work

http://instagram.com/Astrofotografen

http://twitter.com/Astrofotografen

http://www.facebook.com/fotografgoranstrand

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.

Follow me on social media

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

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.

Rare bird Aurora Heron

While preparing my upcoming exhibition (March 28 here in Östersund, Sweden) I was going through some old photos and found this all sky photo of the beautiful aurora that was visible on March 17 in 2013. While looking at it I realized it actually looks like a big Heron flying in the sky.

I also did a transformed version of the image and then it looks like the Heron is sitting down, looking at the moon and planet Jupiter.

Here you can watch a time lapse movie from that awesome night, a night I remember very well.

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 :-)

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.

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.

My Equinox Aurora - Astronomy Picture Of the Day at NASA

Today I'm featured as Astronomy Picture Of the Day at NASA with my photo Equinox Aurora. It was taken on September 24 and is a 360° panoramic view of the entire sky. You can see the Milky Way rise from the East and the aurora to the North. Outside of the all sky circle are reflections in the waters of lake Storsjön near Östersund, Sweden.