A Miracle! — Celebrating 31,000 + visitors with Stetind
Stetind – National Mountain of Norway. I share this symbolically with you to celebrate this new record in visitors to my blog.
January 6. there had been more than 13,000 visitors to my blog since September 30. 2010.
In just three weeks the number has expanded two and a half times – to 31,648 visits as I write this..! Amazing! In just three weeks. I can hardly believe it. Talking about peak in the statistics!
So – symbolically – I decided to share with you a photo I took this summer of The National Mountain of Norway – Stetind (1,392 meters above sea level). This mountain has fascinated Norwegian and foreigners alike for centuries. And it is hard to climb. It was not until July 30. 1910 that Ferdinand Schjelderup, Carl Wilhelm Rubenson, and Alf Bonnevie Bryn finally summit Stetind (for more information, please read this fine Wikipedia article about the mountain).
So, with this photo taken July 30. 2012 I thank all my avid readers and please share this blog with your friends, if you enjoy it!
PS: almost at the bottom of the blog, there is a link called << Older Entries. I recommend you to flick back through the pages. There are lots more photos than what is presented on the first page. My favorite photo subject is Northern Lights and you’ll find several photos of this fantastic phenomenon there, and you can even follow how I progress in mastering this difficult discipline of photography. I hope you will enjoy these many stories back to September 30. 2010.
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.
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!
Hoping for that spectacular night
One of the great joys of photography, is to flip through old shots and rediscovering details you didn’t see the first time. This shot was taken on the January 23. 2012. Tonight there is a clear and rather crisp sky (although I had been hoping for a little less humidity in the atmosphere) – so – who knows – maybe it is going to be one of those spectacular nights again..?
Northern Lights above Ankenes January 23. 2012
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
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
Grand Finale – Northern Lights
The night is getting lighter and soon the Midnight Sun will be shining – thus making it impossible to see the spectacular phenomenon – Northern Lights (Aurora borealis). But still the night is dark enough to se the occasional Northern Lights. Although I am too busy at the moment to spend hours out in the cold gazing for this beautiful light show – yesterday I just had to.
I only shoot photos in RAW-mode. Hence it takes a lot of hard, manual labor to “develop” them into JPEGs suitable for showing here. And there it is again time… Well, I’ve processed one with the planet Venus shining brightly through the vail of the Northern Lights above the Ofoten Fjord.
Northern Lights yesterday - Venus is shining through the vail of Northern Lights
Flashing Auroras
Coming home from a late night meeting last night, I found the skies ablaze. And I was in a hurry with more pressing matters (hmm, is there any good reason not to look at auroras..?) So in a hurry I set up my tripod and camera. Unfortunately the tripod was a little wobbly in the snow and quite a few photos was a bit blurry, but a few turned out alright.
Aurora Borealis yesterday over the Ofoten Fjord
Aurora Borealis - Northern Light - over Narvik last night
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