Sun Day (official)
Today – February 7. – is the official Sun Day in Narvik. That is the day, the sun is no longer obscured by the mountains and it shines down on the town square. The dark season of 2013 is over officially, although a lot of valleys and villages in the municipality has to wait for days, even weeks for the sun to get high enough in the sky to shine down on them. Time flies – and soon the midnight sun will shine in through windows from the oposite side of the Ofoten Fjord.
The official sun day is celebrated with taking half the day off and of course eating sun buns.
The sun is shining downtown today. To the left is the town hall (square building) and the newly built Rica Hotell. Further up the mountain slope Narvik University College is partly lit by the sun beaming down the mountain side.
Golden Top
The sun is shining on the mountain tops. In not very long, it will shine on the city after a long time in the darkness. First sign of spring.
First Sign of Springtime
Happy New Year!
Well over an hour into the new year 2013, I wish everybody a very prosperous and
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year from Narvik!
Light – but no sun
This is a photo of the darkest day of the year in The Polar Night in Narvik. All though the sun is far from showing itself, we have a few hours in the middle of the day when the light is just Magical. The umber reflections of the sun below the horizon emanates the landscape and creates a special, dreamy warm light despite the cold up here.
All though we have no sun here in The Polar Night – the light is Magical! Narvik on the Winter solstice 2012
One from the archives
I really enjoy looking through older photos, and thought this would actually deserve a posting. It’s taken one the magic night 23. January 1216 pm. The northern light was absolutely stunning that evening…
Northern Lights January 23. 2012 with the Fagernes mt. and parts of the city Narvik in the foreground.
Rising moon above the City
Shot this photo of the moon rising this evening above Narvik.
Moon over Narvik
Winter is here!
Winter is here. I defied my crippling back pain and went out to shoot a few photos. Enjoy!
Snow showers coming in the Ofoten Fjord – Eibhlin of Panama is being loaded at pier 5
A tiny waterfall on Ankenes freezing up
Beisfjord and the mountain Beisfjordtøtta farthest away in between the snow showers
The alpine slope on Ankenes needs a little bit more snow to be in service
“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.
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
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.
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)
Second Day of Summer
14. April is – according to the ancient Norwegian calendars, Runic Calendars (primstav) the first day of summer. Hence today would be the second day of summer. As you can see, the fjord today is calm like on a beautiful summer day – but the snow reveals that we still have som way to go before the spring feeling turns into a summer feeling…
Second Day of Summer by the Ofoten Fjord
(Very) Early Morning Scenery
Never ever burn yourself out on negative stress. There is a very fine line between positive stress (I am busy, but I am coping) and negative stress (I am busy, I am not coping and the world is in utter chaos / I am experiencing traumatic events and don’t have the time or the resources to cope with it).
Without going into the finer details of what negative stress does to you psychologically and biochemically – once you crossed the line into negative stress it can have a serious – life shortening – impact on your health like insomnia, which I am suffering from. But insomnia has its perks (no, just kidding). At least you get to see your surroundings at all possible hours. So failing to do what I was supposed to do, I made this photo at 5 am standard time (6 am DST) of the sunrise gleem.
Early Morning in Narvik
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