Norway - Part 1

Aurora!

My long time quest to see a dramatic auroral display in person was partially completed during a 2013 trip to Iceland. The Iceland event was exciting, but confined to a single night. I wanted to see more! Four years later, on a recent trip to Norway, my aurora craving was finally satisfied.

I've admired spectacular online aurora images from Norway posted by observers over the years. Northern Norway seems to be the world's aurora capital, with the city of Tromso the apparent viewing choice of many aurora fanatics. Our Norway tour included several nights in Northern Norway as well as a stop in Tromso, so I had high hopes to see northern lights. My wish came true. In spite of nearly constant Norwegian rain and clouds, I was able to observe and photograph four different auroral displays during unexpected periods of temporary clearing. Two of these displays were particularly dramatic.

On our initial overnight flight to Oslo I had purposely reserved a window seat on the plane's north side in order to spot any northern lights good fortune might throw my way. My strategy was rewarded as we flew over the Labrador Sea on October 9th approaching Greenland. I could see a dim, white, hazy glow running through the constellation Draco. By pressing my smart phone flat against the airplane window, and covering the phone with a blanket to reduce window reflections, I was able to capture the following rather poor image after several attempts. This 10-second exposure at ISO 800 shows how the dim, hazy glow I saw by eye was, indeed, a green aurora with a bit of red fringe. Unfortunately, in spite of my best efforts to hold the phone steady, vibrations of the plane caused jiggling which you can see in the distorted star images.

Norwegian weather forecasts upon arrival in Oslo were very discouraging, especially since magnificent auroral displays were ongoing above the clouds. It was rainy and overcast every day. Eventually, we boarded a ship for a 6-day journey north along the coast. On the night of October 13-14 an announcement through the speaker of our room phone came from the ship's captain. An aurora was visible! I quickly dressed and rushed outside along with several other passengers to see a stunning display of northern lights through a partially cloudy sky. A G2 class geomagnetic storm was in progress! (Like the five intensity levels of hurricanes, geomagnetic storms can range from G1 to G5.) I began observing at 11:40 pm and continued until 1:30 am, taking picture after picture with a tripod-mounted Samsung Galaxy 8 plus phone camera using 10-second exposures at ISO 800.

Observing from the windy, rocking deck wasn't ideal. The ship's motion was a real problem, causing the wiggly, smeared star images you can see in the pictures above. After a few minutes I found a relatively good spot on the port side near the stern where ship lights were mostly blocked and there was shelter from the wind. I took more than 81 pictures. Just by luck, a few weren't too terribly smeared by ship motion.

This light show was incredibly dramatic and bright! My images would have been sharper on steady land, but there was no escape from the moving ship. Although the pictures are smeared out a bit, the aurora I saw with my naked eye was in good focus and very exciting. I returned to bed exhilarated!

The next night we had sailed further north. Another aurora was visible, but dimmer, and blocked by significant cloudiness. I made an effort to capture some images, but only two were even marginally worthwhile.

Five days later we had left the unsteady ship behind. I eagerly anticipated the few remaining observing opportunities at our hotels, but weather forecasts were not encouraging. Every day was cold, drizzly, and completely overcast. The night of October 19th we were in Karasjok at 69.5 degrees north latitude. The sky was forecast to be 100 percent cloudy. Happily, this forecast turned out to be 100 percent wrong! After dinner our guide announced she could see stars. We hurried outside. The sky was nearly cloud free, and we could see northern lights stretching overhead across the entire sky! I quickly ran to our room, grabbed my tripod and a hat, and rushed outside to the hotel parking lot where I took pictures for the next 3 hours. Forgotten in haste were the long underwear, heavy socks, and head lamp I carefully packed while planning for a cold, dark night above the arctic circle. The next image shows what I saw near the beginning of the display. The camera's restricted field of view could not show how the lights arched up overhead from one horizon to the other.

This amazing auroral display will probably be the best I'll ever see.

The lights continually changed shape and intensity, waving around like curtains in a breeze.

The following animation shows how quickly the previous scene changed. It consists of 12 frames, about one every 15 seconds, covering just three minutes of elapsed time!

The lights would suddenly brighten in one place, dim, then brighten in another place as my neck swiveled around trying to see all the action.

Sometimes hints of red were visible.

My camera couldn't capture all the magnificence. Nevertheless, I'm astounded at how well my tripod-mounted phone camera performed.

This event was exactly what I hoped to see in Norway!

The next evening we had some dark, clear sky for a time at our restaurant in Alta. There was an extremely dim green glow along the Milky Way revealed only by cameras, not by the naked eye. No one thought it was worth imaging. We were spoiled by the brilliance of the previous night. Clouds began covering half the sky. The next day we flew back to Oslo and aurora viewing opportunities ended.

My four aurora observations alone made the entire Norway trip worthwhile. But there was a lot to see and do besides the aurora. I'll describe the rest of our trip in the next few posts.