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

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...

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.

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 :)

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.

A new day begins

This is photo no 2 in my 2014 recap. Taken just minutes before the Sun rose above the horizon in January. It was a cold beautiful winter morning. In the photo the Moon is in waning gibbous phase and the sky is colored pink and blue.

The blue part is whats called Earth's Shadow. That's the shadow that the Earth itself casts on its atmosphere.

The pink part of the sky is called the Belt of Venus. The name Belt of Venus is not connected with the planet Venus; the Belt of Venus is part of Earth's upper atmosphere which is illuminated by the setting or rising sun. It is visible either after the sun ceases to be visible (at sunset) or before the sun becomes visible (at sunrise).

The storm is coming

The coming days I will look back on 2014 and show you some of my favorite moments from this year.

We'll start of with this is photo from June. It was one of the most exciting weather fronts I ever seen and it swept in over Östersund with thunderstorms and heavy rain. This photo was taken just a few minutes before the rain started. You can see the rain pouring down in the background.

I really like the structures in the clouds, it almost looks like something out of a SciFi movie.

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.

The Moon and planet Jupiter

This morning the Moon and planet Jupiter (The little bright dot next to the church tower) had an relatively close encounter, at least from our point of view here on Earth.

The distance to the Moon and Jupiter varies, this morning planet Jupiter was about 1,800 times further away than the Moon. It took the light from the Moon about 1 second to reach my camera, but the light from Jupiter had traveled for almost 40 minutes.

So watching pictures like this is like traveling with a time machine. The old Church tower is present time, watching the Moon we have traveled 1 second back in time and when watching Jupiter we have traveled 40 minutes back in time.

So when this light left Jupiter, I was back home and enjoyed my breakfast. It's things like this that make space so cool :-)

Moonlight Skating

A couple of nights ago me and two friends of mine went ice skating on a frozen lake near Östersund. This night was really magic, no wind, lots of ice crystals in the air and an almost full Moon that shined upon us during our two hours out on the ice. To the right of the Moon you can see the constellation of Orion and down left of the Moon you can see planet Jupiter shining brightly.

Nights like these are almost to good to be true.


Music Stellardrone - Ascent, used under Creative Common Licence

What if...

This is a composite image of white light photography through a normal tele lens and a shot of the sun through a hydrogen alpha telescope. The size of the hydrogen alpha Sun is scaled to match the size that was seen through the tele lens.

Just imagine how it would be like to see a sunset like this.

Shot taken in May 2013 on the island of Frösön close to the city of Östersund, Sweden. The church in the foreground is Rödö kyrka.

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.

Lunar Maintenance

The Moon is about to dock onto the lunar station Arcturus in Östersund Sweden, for some maintenance. The latest supermoon event took its toll on our only natural satellite.

Noctilucent Clouds

On the 27th of July 2014 I saw some of the most beautiful Noctilucent Clouds I've ever seen. They emerged shortly after sunset and after a while they covered the entire sky. In this movie I've included an all sky time lapse that shows how these clouds changed over the course of two hours.



Music: Chris Zabriskie - Cylinder Five