|
The report of the 2012
expedition to observe the Aurora Borealis, in
Northern Norway |
|
Between 24 February and 5
March 2012, some of my friends and I made a
10-nights expedition in the deep North, in Northern
Norway, visiting Tromso and Lofoten islands. These
lands are all above the Arctic circle and they are
among the best European choices for the observation
of Northern Lights, for many reasons. The landscapes
are breathtaking, with rocky mountains down to the
sea inside the countless fjords. In spite of the
latitude, the average temperature is not so bad, and
we were quite lucky to experience "only" a minimum
of -5°C. The very high latitude - Tromso is at
about 70° - allows the easy observation of the
Northern Lights even when the activity is not
particularly high, such as when we were there
(unfortunately no huge Sun explosions for us). The expedition members were Alessandro Gambaro, Alessandro Boletti, Silvia Garegnani, Barbara Meucci and me. The two Alessandros and me were armed of a total of 7 DSLR and about 10 tripods. We intended to take very long sequences of shots to show the aurorae motion, by means of time lapses. Thus we needed also a reliable and long lasting power source, so we rented three 12 V, 45 Ah, lead-acid batteries from the Mekonomen shop in Tromso. My instrumentation was composed of:
I've gathered a lot of images: 105 GB for 16484 shots! My friends had similar booties: Ale G, 99 GB x 14709 images, Ale B, 239 GB x 16039 images. Aurorae are very fast and required a little bit of shots! :-) Here below you can find some of the results: aurorae images, a time lapse and diurnal images. I hope you'll enjoy. Let me know any feedback: comolli@libero.it . |
Hurtigruten, MS Lofoten ship in Tromso. |
|
Aurorae
images Click on the image at left to look at some of my best images of aurorae borealis, or "Nordlys", as Norwegians name it. |
|
Time-lapse Click on the image at left to look at a 7 minutes video that shows how fast and incredible are the aurorae. Most of the videos have a speed of about 40x. Options: Youtube - MP4 H264 |
|
Daytime images Click on the image at left to open the Picasa album with 239 shots of the expedition. |
Helpful links for self organizing an
expedition (best months: January to mid March):
|