Young Female Moose
Young Female Moose trimming the tree buds in between the houses today
Ofoten Fjord lit up by Northern Lights
This old and slow computer really needs changing now. Moore’s Law is very much in effect here. But I enjoy very much sharing my photos with you – and by the looks of it – you enjoy it to! Lesley Carter is one of my most avid readers. Her blog Bucket List Publication – lesleycarter.com is really nice – especially if you’re a viking roaming the seven seas (and the lands in between). So please check it out! And she is – according to her profile page – pregnant as well: so congrats and best wishes all around, Lesley!
This photo was taken from Ankens with view of the Ofoten Fjord and the mountain range Veggen (loosly translates to “The Wall”) in the background on October the 12. Enjoy!
Northern Lights lighting up The Ofoten Fjord with the mountain range Veggen in the background. October 12. 2012
“The Light Machine”
The lighthouse on Ankenes and Northern Lights up above behind some fast moving clouds. Taken on October the 13.
“The Light Machine” – Lighthouse on Ankenes and Northern Lights behind some fast-moving clouds up above.
And one more
This is taken the same evening (October 14. 2012) as the previous photo. Here the Northern Light is somewhat stronger. This view is towards the South and the previous photo is taken towards the North.
Northern Lights – Ankenes – seen from the breakwater towards the south
A few picker uppers – Northern Lights shows
Quiet – but it’s there
It’s been very, very quiet on the Northern Lights front. The particle flow is very good. Now, I am not a physicist – but I have a fair share of knowledge in the field, having studied it and been a happy member of the Physics Club at The University of Tromsø (The Northern Lights Capital of Norway – a really fun city with lots of things to explore – I highly recommend it). In my humble opinion when the Solar Wind is at low speeds (right now ~500 km/s) – as it is right now, and the Geomagnetic Field component is neutral and the Dynamic pressure is low – even with a quite strong stream of charged particles from the Sun – all we get here is a “vail” of Northern Lights, but things changes fast. Sudden Solar Prominences can quickly change the conditions for Northern Lights.
2013 – A peak year
The solar activity in terms of Solar Prominences (also known as protuberanses) varies. These are known as Solar Cycles (or Magnetic Activity Cycles). They peak about every 11. year. 2013 is an estimated new peak. In correlations with this heightened activity, solar observatories register a rise in Sun Spots.
The photo below is taken in Ankenes the 15. – which was a pretty good day for shooting, but this faint “vail” captivated me enough to develop.
Faint Vail at 01:55 am above the Fagernes Mt.
The Flash Bang!
To round of a quiet night with practically no northern lights and some editing work on the aging computer – here is one of the big flashes from last night! Glad Wenche came out in time to see this! Better than fireworks – isn’t it!
One of the two biggest flashes last night.
Lighthouse – Light from the North and Friends
In relation to the previous two posts…
Lighthouse and friends
The Quick and The Slow – cranking out Northern Lights
I have a sensational old and slow computer. So cranking out Northern Lights photos is a slow and tedious process in sharp contrast to my camera, which is fast as lightning in comparison when it comes to process photos…
This is one more from yesterday in relation to my last post – see the Home-page.
Another one from the Ofoten Fjord last night.
The Thereminist and The Northern Light
On the third night in a row I went out scouting for the Northern Lights yesterday. I had good company in Danielle and Kent Robin. Liv-Bente had prepared the grounds (if you’d like me to, I’ll explain this in a later post). Just in time for the show, Wenche came along with an exchange student, Ayan from Thailand and an old friend – Rune – and a friend of his – Cathrine – from Narvik Fotoklubb – The local photo club came to scout the skies as well. There were quite a few tripods and camera at one point, but it is always nice to trade tips and tricks in the very skilled and difficult art of taking good northern lights shots.
So what about the title on this post? – you might ask… Well, when there is nobody else out there chatting along, I can actually hear music when I see the northern lights flickering and meandering across the night sky. My good friend – the brilliant singer and thereminist – Amethyste plays along with the light in my mind. She has an angelical voice. I suppose it is simply and purely a question of associations between beautiful things in my life.
Northern Lights flickering above Narvik and Ankenes last night while Améthyste held a concert for my inner ear.
And one more Northern Lights shot!
I am crancking out Northern Lights Photos as fast as I can manage with this old computer. Here’s another one from last night
Beautiful Northern Lights above the Ofoten Fjord
Report from last night – Tonight G1..!
I am crazy busy today – but I just popped by my blog to show my readers an example of last night activity. The Kp-index was steadily around five, which at these latitudes is high (northern lights activity normally starts at Kp 2/3. Tonight there is a geomagnetic storm coming with an estimated strength of G1 (the scale goes from G0 – no activity to G5 where all hell breaks loose and satellites gets their curcuitboards fried and powergrids here on Earth fails).
Unfortunately there were strong winds and quite a bit of rain and partly cloudy yesterday. But still the build up to the storm was quite obvious in between the clouds!
Strong Auroral Activity is seen in between the Clouds last night.
And another one from yesterday!
Aurora borealis above the Ofoten Fjord with the mountain Veggen in the background as seen from Ankenes yesterday.
Fantastic aurora!
Standing there in the darkness – jumping up and down like a little kid at Christmas – and shouting -Yes! and Aaaah!, I probably look quite silly for a grown man, but every occasion like yesterday is exactly like Christmas to me! The Aurora borealis – Northern Light is so awe-inspiring that I wish all the japanese, Korean and Chinese tourist here in Norway could see it! They really are memories for a lifetime. Last night Kp-index was 3 (2 and above means chances to see northern lights at these latitudes). Today the Kp is even higher, at 5 – so I am soooo hoping for equally crisp, clear skies and even bigger lights!
I managed to get great many shots yesterday. And I had company. Danielle came down to the water with her boyfriend and I helped her getting into the fine techniques of shooting Northern Lights photographs.
And another bonus last night was the swarms of beautiful meteorites. I belive it must have been the orionides that should be passing just these days. Although my camera was pointed in the wrong directions, when I got home, I found that actually three of my photos had captured these beautiful sights. My head was obviously pointing in the wrong direction at these points, as I didn’t see them until I started flipping through the shots.
Well, here is a tiny fraction of last night’s phenomenal photo shoot. Enjoy!
Northern Lights stretching all the way form to the North of Narvik and all the way to the South-West above Vestfjorden. To the left Ankenes, and to the right Veggen and Forratangen. In the center Kjeldebotn.
Strong meteor (shooting star) between the lighthouse in Ankenes and aurora.
Northern Lights above the Narvik peninsula last night
Northern Lights photographer Danielle catching the last of the show
Tonight, tonight, maybe tonight…
The conditions are good! Clear skies and moderate particle stream from the sun, so my camera is set, my wool clothes are all ready. Tripod? Check! Extra battery? Check! Flash light? Check! All systems nominal. Go, no-go for northern lights! WE HAVE A GO FOR AURORA BOREALIS!
In the news today we saw that 45. million readers have seen the Facebook page for Visit Northern Norway – and yet again my friend Øystein Lunde Ingvaldsen lundeimages. com made the frontpage with one of his stunning photos, the very photo I got his permission to show here to the right! It is an absolute beauty of a northern lights shot! The photo is taken in Bø in Vesterålen (Boe in Vesteraalen) – the beautiful group of islands between Lofoten and the main land.
Visit Northern Norway Facebook page – click here
45 million visits to Visit Northern Norway (Norwegian)
Northern lights? -straight up, please!
Partly cloudy – but still a few nice in “the bag”
I was hoping for clear, crisp weather and maybe a combined northern lights shots and a meteor from the Draconids – wich is the hot topic in tonight’s sky. I saw three really nice shooting stars, but ales, didn’t capture them. I would probably have caught some more, if it wasn’t for the clouds. I caught a few nice though! It was really the AHHHH!-moment of my Northern Lights watching career – but it was nice anyway.
At one point I managed to do a long exposure of Widerøe’s Flight WF855 (Dash 8-100) from Narvik taking off from Narvik Airport at 1010 pm (GMT+1). Funny how the landing lights and strobes made a nice pattern across the beautiful moonlit scene.
Widerøe’s (Wideroe) flight WF855 taking off from Narvik Lufthavn/Airport at 22:10 local time. Ankenes Lighthouse in the foreground. Narvik City in the background.
Tonights Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) reflected in the Ofoten Fjord with a couple of iron ore bulk carriers at anchor waiting for service.
Aurora Borealis again – excactly 1 year after
Incidentally exactly one year ago I was also shooting Aurora Borealis – Northern Lights photos. I recall the conditions were somewhat better than today, but still, I am not complaining. I shot a few, but this was – if not the best – the most interesting because of the perspective. The aurora is partly obscured by a cloud.
Aurora borealis is formed some 80 – 3-400 km above Earth Surface by charged particles from the sun that excites atoms in the ionosphere. When the electrons in the excited atoms falls back again to lower states of energy, they release the energy, from the collision with the particle from the sun, in the form of a photon which is the light waves/particles that we observe as light on our retina.
Northern Lights – Aurora Borealis tonight above Ankenes
The Winter Creeps up on us – or should I say down
Took this photo today of the Roasme Mountain range, and winter is just 1,000 meters away from us now. Soon we’ll be engulfed by the magic of snow..!
Winter is coming – the snow coveres mountain peaks gets whiter by the day
Et Voila!
I reported on clear skies and a hope for northern light yesterday. And my dreams came through! Here is the first of the photos. It was a “flash” at the beginning of the show, and the reason why I picked this, is simply because of the really cool reflections in the fjord. This was taken at 20 seconds exposure, which makes it kind of blurry, but still it came out nice with a little adjustments for white balance.
Northern Lights behind clouds reflecting into the Ofoten Fjord. Narvik peninsula to the right.
Northern Lights Alert
…well it isn’t – Northern Lights Alert, that is.. But as you can see from this image shot and hour ago, the conditions are clear, and even though the statistics for aurora tonight (se graphic to the right) isn’t way up in the red end of the scale – I’m hoping to see and maybe shoot a photo of the first aurora this fall.
Clear skies tonight – hoping for aurora
Flamy Clouds
Was on my way to the store to stock up for det weekend, when I stumbled on this beautiful cloud. So out with the camera, and as it happened, I decided to go for an HDR-photo. So this photo is a composite of 3 photos shot with different exp. comp. (-1 to +1).
Dramatic and beautifully painted clouds above the inner parts of Ofoten Fjord by Ankenes / Narvik (please click photo to see the full size)
Silent Night by the Fjord
Shot this composite last night. The growth of forest here on Ankenes is tremendous, but not many seems to care. Thus just popping out to get a shot of the beautiful scenery gets harder and harder due to obstruction of trees.
Anyway, was about to go to bed, when very calm water in Narvik harbor basin lured me with its beautiful reflections to set up my tripod and take a few shots. Unfortunately, a lot of the view is now totally obscured by the trees growing ever bigger around here.
Panorama of a calm Narvik Harbor Basin (please, click on the picture to see the full size)
This man touched your life profoundly today – Born 150 years ago
Vilhelm Bjerknes - One of the most important scientists of modern times - 150 years anniversary
You may not think too much about it, but almost every item you are in contact with every day, practically every second is impacted by one very essential thing: weather… Think about it, industry transport goods over the oceans or through the air. Maintaining a major road takes planning and is dependent on good weather forecasts. What is an almost dead-certain part of any news broadcast where ever you are on the planet? Weather forecasts… And the man that invented the science that makes modern, scientific weather forecasts possible, was the Norwegian Vilhelm Bjerknes. Until he did it, nobody thought it would be possible to predict weather with any accuracy.
In a country where you can always start a conversation with a chat about the weather – Norway – (we have a lot of it here) we celebrate the 150 year birthday of this remarkable man who contributed so much to making your modern, everyday-life possible!
Vilhelm Bjerknes (14 March 1862 – 9 April 1951)
SOPA / PIPA postponed indefinitely
The SOPA and PIPA law proposals are postponed indefinately! Which means the World’s Population – not the Entertainment Industry – still has the democratic control over the internet! (For now)
So in order to join in the free expression of the world this entire blog is free under a CC – Creative Commons License – with the following limitations:
Commercial Use: NO (right back at you, greedy entertainement industry) Not without my written permission.
Share alike/alter the work: Yes, you may alter and share my pictures, videos or texts from this blog, as long as you link back to the blog. But still, if for commercial use, you need my written permission.
This license applies to The Whole World!
Dette verk er lisensieret under en Creative Commons Navngivelse-Ikkekommersiell-DelPåSammeVilkår 3.0 Unported lisens.
I am so sorry…
- Do you prefer a safe Internet?
- Do you prefer a stable Internet?
- Do you prefer the old security of rights “Innocent until proven Guilty” to still be a golden rule in democratic societies?
- Do you support a free, prosperous Internet
- Do you oppose giving control over the World’s most significant tool for Prosperity and Freedom of Expression to the entertainment industry and dictatorius regimes?
Please, watch these film:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html
http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa
This has NOTHING to do with protecting artists’ Copyright! They are already protected through the law over most parts of the world – and I support the ones I like by buying their music and films.
This has EVERYTHING to do with giving the Entertainment Industry (and subsequently corrupt regimes) the TOTAL control over The Internet…
Still not convinced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc
- If you are a US citizen, please, contact your congressman today and protest!
- Do you know a US citizen, please urge him/her to protest!
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