Crossbills - (Korsnebber)

The season for northern lights is inevitably coming to an end even if there might still be a chance to see the auroras for a couple of more weeks. Despite high solar activity lately, most parts of Northern Norway have experienced lots of grey and cloudy weather, and only occasionally the green glow of the aurora has been possible to glimpse through the thick cloud-cover.

The nights are getting light quickly now and the spring is marching in with new signs of spring coming almost each day. Birds arrive again from the south to their breeding areas in the north and without the dark skies "Northern Lights Photography" will focus more and more on the Scandinavian wildlife until the next season in September-October - in the year of solar maximum!

First out are some of the early breeders among birds up here - the crossbills. All over Scandinavia, the Two-barred crossbills (Loxia leucoptera) have occurred in higher than usual numbers after an invasion from the north-east (Russia) last year, and in many places they are still around feeding on their favourite food - cones of larch.

Two-barred crossbills (Loxia leucoptera) feeding on larch

Two-barred crossbill (Loxia leucoptera) - male

Two-barred crossbill (Loxia leucoptera) - male

The unusual shape of the bill - giving them the name crossbills - is an adaptation to assist in the extraction of the seeds from the cones as can be seen on the short video-clip of common crossbills (Loxia curvirostra) below:

Common crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) feeding on cones in Tromsø

Cold is beautiful

The last week has been really cold, and in my eyes, the colder, the more beautiful the world usually gets. A warm summers day can be fantastic, and I really look forward to the northern spring, but nothing ever beats the frozen silent winter-world.

The last rays of sun on the mountain "Piggtinden" stretching 1505 m over the sea. 

A Northern Hawk Owl is watching over the winter landscape in front of the Moon

Cold is beautiful

Comet in the morning sky

Comet Garradd has been visible in the sky for a long while now. During the first part of the winter, the comet was best seen in the evenings, but it has dropped lower for each day and is now best viewed in the mornings.

The comet is located in the constellation of Hercules and can be found reasonably high in the skies in the early morning hours. The comet is fairly bright, but unfortunately just below naked-eye visibility. It is, however, an easy binocular target and can be seen with a normal pair of binoculars (say 8x45) even from moderately light-polluted skies.

Below is a picture of the comet taken in the morning of 26 January 2012 with a DSLR and a 300mm lens (consisting of ~50 stacked 30-second exposures). The comet is sporting two tails and the photo below reveals the ion tail of the comet (which can be seen extending to the right of the green coma) and the dust tail (stretching down below the comet). Earlier in the year, the two tails appeared like single tail as seen from our perspective, but as the comet rounded the Sun, the two tails can now be seen separately.

The green glow in the background is due to faint pulsating auroras in the sky.

Comet Garradd will remain visible in the constellation of Hercules for yet a long time.

Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd

Crescent Moon + Venus (and Uranus)

Tonight, the crescent Moon (12% lit) and the planet Venus (shining brightly at mag -4) can be seen closely together in the sky as the sun sets.

This is the pair together last evening (25 January). Tonight, they will be even closer to eachother.

Tonight (26 January 2012) the pair looks like on the picture below. Note that it is not only possible to see the Moon and Venus close to eachother. A little further up the blue dot of Uranus can be seen and a little further to the west (not on the picture) Jupiter shines almost as bright as Venus. A night for planet-watching!

Update - Solar Storm in Progress

During the last three days, very strong northern lights have been seen all around the Arctic circle.

As predicted, a strong coronal mass ejection (CME) hit the Earth`s magnetic field only an hour ago at approximately 1500 UT, as reported by my colleague Rob Stamnes at Polar Light Center in Lofoten, Norway.

This means that strong auroras are very likely in the hours ahead, so if you have clear skies, go out and have a look at the night sky!

Below is a video sequence I made from the solar storm of 21-23 January 2012 - tonight`s show might be even better!

Watch the video in Full HD here

The Sun is awake!

Last Saturday (Jan 21) was the return-of-the-Sun day here in Tromsø, when the Sun could be seen above the horizon for the first time since November last year. Because of mountains blocking the view I haven`t seen the actual Sun yet, but the reflected light could be seen on the mountain slopes and soon it will reach even higher.

The Sun, however, did much more than "just" return this weekend - it also sent along a so-called coronal mass ejection (CME), which hit the Earth's magnetic field and produced some very strong northern lights all around the Arctic circle.

This is what the night sky looked like as seen from Kvaløya outside Tromsø. The pictures are from January 21, 22 and 23rd.

Auroras and the planet Jupiter in the gap of Ersfjorden, Norway

The Pleiades and Jupiter framed by auroras and the mountains of Kvaløya

Northern Lights corona in green and red

Red auroras

View from the outside of Kvaløya on January 22

Humpback Whales in Polar Darkness

Yesterday was an amazingly beautiful winter day here on Kvaløya on the coast of Northern Norway.

I woke up in the morning to the blue light of dawn and felt that the temperature in the bedroom was around 7-8 degrees. What this usually means is that the sky has been clear during the night, allowing the temperature to drop both outside and inside, and when I looked out, the brighter stars were still sparkling like little gems over the snowclad landscape and the sky was crisp and clear.

It is still polar darkness here in the north, so the Sun doesn`t rise above the horizon until the end of the month, but the special light can make January one of the most beautiful months of the year.

What can then possibly be better than going out at sea and watch the mountain-peaks of the fjords rise like snow-giants out of the sea in the blue morning light? I was lucky enough to be invited out for a boat trip by another biologist and photographer (thank you so very much for an amazing trip Audun - it is a true pleasure to be out with such nice persons as you guys and great to meet people with similar interests).

Gulls feeding on herring around mid-day outside Kvaløya

After searching along the coast for any signs of humpback whales for the identification project - Humpback Whale ID - we couldn`t find any whales in the areas where they had been spotted earlier, but outside the characteristic mountain "Håja", we saw thousands of gulls and drove towards them. When we came closer, we saw the blows of two humpback whales feeding on herring, together with lots of gulls, razorbills, and no less than 16 sea eagles, that wanted to have their share of the food.

Humpback Whale in Polar Darkness

The short days only allowed for a few pictures before the dusk came, but we stayed out at sea as long as possible to enjoy the afternoon light and to see the Moon rise over the horizon. When Venus and Jupiter were climbing above the mountains, and more and more stars became visible in the sky, we headed back home as darkness fell once again over Kvaløya.

Full Moon rising next to Sandøya

Full Moon over Sandøya as seen from open sea

Humpback Whale in the dark

Dusk over Senja

The best fireworks of New Year

Happy New Aurora Year!

Last year ended with a wonderful northern lights show, and as midnight drew nearer, the sky was painted in green and the stars shone like little gems in the cold winter night.

On a night like this, when the sky is filled with it`s own fireworks, I have to say I can`t really see the point in sending up a bunch of rockets in the sky that goes bang and leaves behind a lot of chemicals. I know I may sound a bit boring, and lets face it, it only happens once a year, but admittedly, I have never been a huge fan of fireworks, and even less so when the sky is putting up a show of its own in green and purple with more amazing patterns than any pyrotechnical engineer can ever dream about !

I hope 2012 will offer many more displays like this - full of amazing colours and patterns - and completely silent and free for everyone to watch.

I wish you all clear skies and the very best for the coming year - which is probably going to be a good year for auroras with the solar maximum coming up in 2012/2013.

Below is a small time-lapse teaser of the northern lights from the last day of 2011:

 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Humpback Whales

Right now, the traditional and important fishing for herring is in full swing along the coast of Northern Norway and it is a very special sight to see the returning fishing-boats in the fjords during the blue light of the polar darkness.The herring does not only attract the fishermen, but also killer whales and humpback whales that feast on the fish along the coasts and fjords.

Returning with a catch of herring

As a marine biologist, I started (in a very small scale) to collect pictures for photo-identification of humpback whales in Norway in 2008 - a project that will hopefully one day result in new knowledge on the ecology of humpbacks and give insight into migration patterns between e.g. different feeding grounds. In co-operation with other biologists such data may also reveal migration routes between the feeding grounds in the north and the overwintering grounds in the southern hemisphere.

The most widely used tool for studying humpbacks is very simple and straight-forward. The technique basically involves getting good enough pictures of the flukes of the whales that can be stored in a database. Because no two humpbacks look exactly the same (the flukes have various patterns and markings/scars) the pictures can be used as human fingerprints to identify individual whales. If enough pictures from various places are collected over long time, the same individuals may be seen several times and one can start to get an idea of e.g. migration patterns and the population size.

The fluke of a humpback whale is like a human fingerprint and not two flukes look the same 

All projects that aim to understand more about cetaceans through photo-identification are long-term projects and a lot of time and patience is needed before any useful body of data is collected, but one has to start somewhere.

Yesterday, me and a couple of good friends went out with a local fisherman (thank you so much for all your help O-G, you were amazing and did not disturb the whales once!), and managed to locate five different humpbacks on the outside of Kvaløya, and although the whales were clearly resting at the surface for most of the time, I could add at least four "new" individuals to the database. Not only the fluke, but also the dorsal fin is highly characteristic and will be included in the database.

The dorsal fins of two different humpback whales (collected in 2008) outside the coast of Senja

Humpback Whale outside Kvaløya, 17 December 2011

HUMPBACK VIDEO:

Humpback Whale film from outside Kvaløya, Troms

If anyone observes humpbacks along the Norwegian coast and/or have pictures that may be useful for photo-identification, I would be very happy to get in contact with you and you can always reach me on: info@northernlightsphotography.no

Read more about the humpbacks in the Norwegian News NRK Troms og Finnmark

Total Lunar Eclipse indeed !

The night before the total lunar eclipse was cold and crystal clear with excellent seeing conditions, so my hopes were high for getting a spectacular view of the eclipse the next day. As usual with eclipses, however, unexpected clouds tend to roll in just in time for the eclipse and naturally they did. It was not even possible to guess where the moon should have been in the sky, so in a way, I guess one can call it a sucessful total lunar eclipse - I couldn`t see a thing!

But then, when the totality was over, I could briefly glimpse the eclipsed moon for about 10 minutes. This is also very typical eclipse-behaviour. When you give up, the clouds play a little with you and give you back some hope and below is my best, and only, shot of the event before the clouds rolled in again.

The day after the eclipse, the sky was crystal clear here in Tromsø again and I`m sure the clouds were having a good laugh up in the heaven (probably over some other sky-watcher who went out to enjoy the night sky), but all in all, it`s good to know that some things never change.

Besides, maybe the clouds have decided that they have had their fun and that they give us some clear skies for the upcoming Geminid meteor shower! The job of spoiling a good meteor shower is after all the job of the moon, which will be almost full.

The Geminids are usually extremely good though, and the chances are high for some bright fire-balls to be seen even in bright moonlight!

Total Lunar Eclipse

Next Saturday, on the 10th of December, a total lunar eclipse will be visible in all of Norway and in large parts of northern Europe, North America and Asia.

Here in Norway, the eclipse will be visible in all of the country. In southern Norway, however, the eclipse will start before the Moon has climbed over the horizon so the beginning of the eclipse won`t be visible. In Northern Norway the entire eclipse will be visible and the Moon will be relatively high in the north-east during the peak of the eclipse.

The eclipse will start at 13:45 (i.e. first umbral contact) and the moon will be totally eclipsed for almost an hour (51 minutes) between 15:06 - 15:57. The last umbral contact will be at 17.18.

Please note that the times are given in local time for Norway, so for universal time (UT) you will have to subtract an hour, so the totality will therefore be between 14:06 - 14:57 UT.

For details check NASAs lunar eclipse page: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2011.html#LE2011Dec10T

The Moon will be good placed in the sky, so there should be plenty of nice photo-opportunities, weather permitting. Below is s picture from the total lunar eclipse in December last year, when thin clouds covered the moon. The next total lunar eclipse in Norway won`t be until 2015, so grap the chance and go out and watch the Moon `disappear` next Saturday afternoon !

Total lunar eclipse of 21 December 2010

Total lunar eclipse of 21 December 2010

Red and Green Sky

The polar darkness is far from being dark!

Tonight a CME (coronal mass ejection) from the Sun hit the Earth`s atmosphere and produced some fantastic northern lights that played over the snow-clad landscape during all the night.

At some points during the night there was even some all-red auroras mixed with the green, which is not a common sight even within the Arctic circle. This looks very promising for the polar darkness period, which really ought to be called the polar lights period...

Goodbye Sun

Tomorrow, the polar night period will begin here in Tromsø in Northern Norway, meaning that the Sun won`t rise above the horizon until January next year. Depending on the location, the length of the polar night period varies from just 20 hours on the Arctic circle to as much as 179 days of the year at the poles. Here in Tromsø the polar night period is "officially" between 25 November - 17 January, but many different definitions (and traditions) exist, and, due to the surrounding mountains blocking the view, the polar night in Tromsø is said to start on the 22 of November.

The last sunrise of 2011

The polar night can only be experienced inside the polar circles and can therefore only be experienced in seven different countries (not counting Antarctica); Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Greenland, US and Canada. To be perfectly strict, Iceland also has a tiny fraction of land within the Arctic circle.

Contrary to common belief, the polar night is not just dark, cold and horrible. To me, this is by far the most beautiful time of the year. A typical day during the polar night period begins with a long slow dawn in different hues of deep blue colours peaking with some orange-yellowish glow where the Sun should have been. Just when you believe the sun is about to rise above the horizon, a long slow dusk starts, turning the snow-covered mountains pink against the cold blue light. Then the Moon and the stars start to rise over the snow-covered landscape and the northern lights begin to play and dance like green and purple ribbons in the sky.

Tromsø during polar darkness

The polar darkness is also a very good time for cosy evenings in front of the fireplace, a time for reading good books and drink hot chocolate in cafès, and last but not least, a time to enjoy the northern lights under the stars! Entering the polar darkness also means that there will be a "return of the Sun"-celebration in the end of January to look forward to...

The blue light of the polar darkness

Blood-red Auroras

Tonight the sky was filled by some of the most spectacular northern lights that I have ever seen. Early in the evening some truely amazing blood-red auroras could be seen towards the southern horizon as a strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) hit the Earth`s atmosphere and sparked a geomagnetic storm over the polar areas and also extended the aurora-oval far south so that many areas where auroras are normally not seen got to see the show, including "exotic" areas like e.g. Arkansas and California!

Time after time the sky was filled by the most amazing patterns, including strong coronas in green and purple, but most noticable was the dominance of the very deep all-red auroras - a much deeper red then I have ever seen before!

Deep red auroras dominated the sky tonight.

The colour of the northern lights depend largely on the composition of gases in the Earth`s atmosphere. When charged particles from the solar wind hit the atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, they excite the atoms present and give off light that we see as auroras. Tonights deep-red auroras indicate that the particles from the solar wind interacted with oxygen at high altitudes (whereas the more "normal" greenish-yellow auroras are formed at lower altitudes). Neutral nitrogen is responsible for the purple colour often seen at the "edges" of the more common oxygen-green.

More about red auroras can be read here: http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF9/918.html

Northern Lights Corona in green, yellow and purple (the orange parts are clouds)

Enjoying life!

Deep red auroras as seen from a river around midnight. Orion can be seen to the right.
The lights from the nearby city Tromsø can be glimpsed to the left in the picture

Northern lights crown - corona

Later in the night, the auroras appeared so strong in colour that I had to

decrease the saturation level in post-processing considerably!

Panorama by the sea. Large patches of an almost unreal red colour dominated the auroras tonight.

The planet Jupiter can be seen shining through the thin clouds to the upper right.

Bird-photography from the living-room

It is late October and most birds have left their breeding grounds up here in the north. With the last month being dominated by heavy rainfall and wind, I can see their point in choosing to spend the winter further south, even if I myself can`t stand warm temperatures and very much welcome the winter.

Some birds stay during the whole winter, and more and more birds are gathering around the small feeding-place that we have in our garden, to feed on sunflower-seeds. Some days, a handful of seeds is all that is needed to do some nice bird-photography in the rain.

When I was out refilling seeds the other day I managed to scare off one of my absolute favourite birds (but a bird that I have never seen around here before) - a Great Grey Shrike / Varsler (Lanius excubitor). I failed to find it again, but instead another bird of prey visited the feeding-place just a few minutes later - a Sparrowhawk / Spurvehauk (Accipiter nisus).

Sparrow Hawk

Soon after having scared the smaller birds away, a Jay came flying and landed higher up in the same tree and very clearly showed that it did not like the new visitor at all. When irritated, jays often announce a bird of prey with a harsh screech and raise a crest of feathers on their head which made for a funny picture of this colourful bird.

Eurasian Jay / Nøtteskrike (Garrulus glandarius)

Eurasian Jay - a colourful bird

The sparrow hawk became immidiately aware of the new-comer, and kept it under close watch, and after taking off, the hawk suddenly re-appeared several times and it looked like it was not just irritated but actually considering the jay as prey despite the large size. Normally sparrow hawks go for smaller prey but this bird looked to me as if it was a female (being considerably larger than the male), and came back several times in surprise-attacks even though the smaller birds were gone and it did not look like the jay had full control over the situation.

An attack by a Sparrow Hawk goes quickly and usually happens among the branches of a tree.

The Sparrow Hawk kept the Jay under close inspection

Happy with the photo-session from the livingroom, another surprise-visit came by in the afternoon - a Three-toed Woodpecker /Tretåspett (Picoides tridactylus) - a beautiful woodpecker of the northern taiga.

Three-toed Woodpecker

Male Three-toed Woodpecker in the garden