Celebrating with a jump!

While the blog updates have been suffering lately, I'd like to share this photo from last weekend's research trip celebrating the 100.000 hits on the Northern Lights Photography blog - thanks to everyone who's been visiting and commenting!

All the best from a, right now, windy and rainy Norway!

The Everyday Greyness

Clear skies here in Northern Norway have offered an amazing view of the northern lights lately with the internet buzzing with green photos. However, what caught my own eye lately was rather the grey landscape who covered the area around one of the more scenic fjords around Tromsø, offering a soft and mild tone in the rather special colours of "everyday greyness" - a title I have never given to a photo before.

Finally Dark Skies!

With the Moon being only a thin waning crecent right now, the first really dark skies of the season could be glimpsed the other night - it's hard to believe that it's been half a year since last it was possible to see the Milky Way from Tromsø!

I used the opportunity to try and catch a glimpse of the currently brightest comet in the northern hemisphere - comet C/2014 E2 Jacques - a long-period comet discovered in March this year.

Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques - 16 September 2014

Stacking eighteen 30-sec shots showed the comet fairly nicely, even in a "wide-field" image like this, but alas, the comet is fading slowly as it travels from Vulpecula to Aquila during September/October. The magnitude is currently reported to be around 8.0.

Note some of the well-defined dark areas in the lower and left part of the photo - a beautiful area of the Milky Way. Some faint pulsating aurorae was visible all over the sky - finally the dark season is back!

First Northern Lights of the Season

Tonight, the Northern Lights finally returned again!

After the long midnight-sun period here in Northern Norway, where it's impossible to see even the brightest stars from end-April - early-August, the autumn always comes as a relief to me when the first stars finally become visible again as the skies gradually get darker for each night.

Last night's aurora display was in fact so strong that, although familiar constellations such as Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper/The Plough are still only to be made out very faintly on the blue night sky, the auroras shimmered and danced in an explosion of colours.

This is what the sky looked like close to midnight just outside Tromsø in Northern Norway.

As Spaceweather report, "the twilight display was sparked by a pair of CME impacts on August 27th. As Earth passed through the wake of the storm clouds, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) around Earth tipped south. This opened a crack in our planet's magnetosphere; solar wind poured in to fuel a light show that lasted for nearly three days and nights".

The aurora-season has begun!

Pygmy Owl

Well camouflaged in an old woodpecker nest (probably), this pygmy owl brightened up one of my summer days not long ago here in Troms - perhaps one of the cutest birds ever and the smallest owl in Europe.

Too warm for a photogapher...

For some reason I photograph very little during summer and therefore the blog updates suffer. Instead, I have been re-designing my website a bit lately and I have added some fresh images of Nordic Wildlife to the galleries. While there is still a lot of work to do I came across some collections of photos that I had almost forgotten about, so here's a July-photo I found in my archive.

With best summer-wishes (and for those like me who like cold temperatures better), fingers crossed for some rain and less harsh photo-light :-)

Great Snipe in Midnight Sun

Here in Northern Norway, the midnight-sun period is now in full swing and the sun is shining all the night.

Yesterday evening me and a friend went out with our cameras to view the spectacular display of the Great Snipe (Gallinago media) - a near threatened bird - that tradtitionally gathers on leks located on wet mires with tussucks. The strange noise they make, which has been likened to a "ping-pong-match" clould be heard among the tussucks of cloudberries and bog rosemary in the low midnight sun - a beautiful experience and a wonderful bird.

Photo Exhibition on Baffin Island, Arctic Canada

Last year, my first full-scale international photo exhibition was held in the Canadian capital Ottawa during the three-week long winter-festival "Winterlude".

Later the photo exhibition was displayed in Edmonton, Alberta during the Scandinavian Heritage Fair and now the large panels of the aurora images from Kvaløya, Norway travel all the way to the far north of the Canadian Arctic to Baffin Island and the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum in Iqaluit.

Aurora Images on Display in Ottawa, Canada

I am proud to have images of Northern Lights on display on Baffin Island and I wish the visitors and organisers all the best from a fellow location in the high north.

Release of New Aurora Documentary - "The Northern Lights - A Magic Experience"

Announcement: The official trailer of the new documentary - "The Northern Lights - A Magic Experience" is now released. Watch the trailer in full HD at Vimeo

 This is the official trailer of the documentary "The Northern Lights - A Magic Experience"

Release-info: The 25 minute documentary takes you on a breathtaking journey through space. By using pedagogic top-quality animations and spectacular solar imagery from NASA satellites it tells the full story of the northern lights from myth to science. The film is packed with interesting historical anecdotes and includes tips about how to take your own stunning aurora photos.

It includes some of the world's best photography and time lapse sequences of the northern lights. The film is perfectly suited for use at science museums, planetariums, hotels and by aurora tour guide companies.

The documentary is produced by Pål Brekke, an international recognized solar physicist and public outreach expert with many years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (www.solarmax.no/Aurora/Home.html). Co-producer is award-winning aurora photographer and popular science writer Fredrik Broms who took all the aurora images and time lapse footage.

Norwegian and German version of the documentary will soon be released.

Contact one of us for a full preview of the film and for license options.

Orcas and Humpbacks

Still, the North-Norwegian fjords are filled with herring attracting killer whales, humpback whales and fin whales..

 

 

 

 

 

Trailer - Aurora Short-Film

The aurora activity is picking up again and below is a short trailer from a longer Northern Lights documentary - The Northern Lights - A Lifetime Experience - special made for the Holmenkollen Ski Museum in Oslo, Norway

For more information, visit the web page of the Ski Museum or see the trailer on Vimeo