Astronomy Picture Of the Day at NASA

Today I'm featured as Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) at NASA with my photo of a lunar flyby.

The photo of a Gibbous Moon flyby was taken on the 29th of October in 2018 and was taken in the mountain area of Jämtland, Sweden

Just as I had set the camera for the correct exposure of the Moon and the mountain, this plane passed by. I quickly snapped a couple of shots and this is one of them. The photo was taken using my Nikon D850 with the Nikon AF-S 300mm f/4E PF ED VR lens.

This is APOD number 17 for me and it's always such an honor to be featured by NASA.

You can buy this photo as a print here - https://shop.astrofotografen.se/p661802438/ebc175045

Lunar flyby over the mountains in Jämtland, Sweden

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Rare colorful clouds

Yesterday, one hour before sunset, I did see some colorful clouds in the opposite direction of the Sun (At the Anti solar point). I never seen colored clouds there before so I had a hard time figuring out if they were polar stratospheric clouds or iridescent clouds. The colored clouds slowly faded away as the sun set so I thought it might be iridescent clouds, but I never seen them opposite of the Sun before.

When I returned home I contacted Les Cowley at OPOD (http://www.atoptics.co.uk) to get his opinion of these clouds and he guessed that it's tropospheric iridescent clouds. He's never seen them opposite the sun before so this is probably very rare.

Always exciting to see a new phenomena, perfect ending for 2017.

Happy new year everyone!

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

Solar and lunar halo

Earlier in March this year I took a shot of me standing in a winter landscape under a lunar halo. Last week I returned to the same spot and redid the shot, but this time during a solar halo. I didn't get the exact same angle but it was pretty close.

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

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 :)

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).