Aurora obs report and photos

[duckvader]

hi gavin

on the 22nd Oct, we actually walked past your hotel and walked along the beach northwards until we came to the first breakwater (which had some erected flat rocks so we could sit and lean on it, and kept us protected from the wind.) Same breakwater?
ya, we should have arranged to view the aurora together, though i was rather pessimistic cos it was so cloudy all day long and we also had to catch the morning flight back the next day..

My first impression of the aurora on the 22nd was sort of anti-climax cos we were expecting to see bright green lights in the sky(like in the pictures). as it turn out, it didnt look all that different from the other pinkish looking clouds that night. so we nearly missed it.
The 24th was different.. certain times in the night, we could actually see green streaks of light and that was really amazing.. but we didnt manage to capture any of the violet, blue lights you had in your photos..i tried doing time lapse as well but i was just so busy shooting all over the skies, the lights were literally everywhere!

we departed at 2am cos it was a 40 minutes walk back to our hotel.
The most amazing thing was to see the lights actually "dancing" in front of your eyes, not fading in and out but actually moving..btw, did you hear "music"? both of us did..quite surreal..
here's what you missed before 11pm - green skies


hope to visit tromso again one day..

[starfinder]

Hi duckvader,

Oh that's amazing, from the same forum, same city/country, same interest, viewing at the same (or nearly the same) spot thousands of miles away, but missing each other by minutes! Cld you pls ask your friend whom I chatted with at the visitor centre to have a look at this forum post?

Sat 22nd Oct: I arrived in Tromso at 4pm on a flight from Oslo, and the skies were very clear then. I did try to view the aurora in the evening, but didn't see and did not capture any aurora on camera. To think I missed even a moment of it on my first night there, when I was so keen to see it. I suppose the aurora is quite elusive.

I think I only got ready with all my winter/photography gear at around 9pm. (Incidentally, it was the characteristic use of the word "got" by one of you guys at the Tromso visitor centre that confirmed for me that you're from Singapore or Malaysia, plus our accent, so I put forward the question then, "Are you guys from Singapore?" I should also have asked "Are you from Singastro too?"). I then viewed and photographed the sky till around 11.30pm when all the clouds rolled in. I then got up every 2 hours thereafter till dawn to check the skies, but it was cloudy everytime.

Mon 24th Oct: Arrgh! Looks like we each missed a bit of the aurora display on the night of Mon 24th Oct, me from 9pm to 11pm (asleep), and you guys after 2am! I was later told that on the night of 24th, there was a "show" earlier in the night and then "colour" later in the night, so that confirms what we each missed. But anyway, I suppose we can combine our photo albums. The breakwater I was at from 4am onwards was to the left (east) of the seafront at my hotel, about 200m away. The one you were at was to the right?

Music? I did not hear a single thing, other than the wind! I've read some accounts of people hearing noises during an aurora display, but certainly not music. Pls describe it more, e.g. how long it lasted, how loud, pitch, any melody, rhythmn, continuity etc.

Yes, I would like to visit Tromso again one day. The surrounding mountain and sea landscape in the region is very scenic. But I suppose the mountains should have a good coating of snow for it to be scenic, which it mostly was when we were there.

[antares2063]

hi gavin,

awesome post and photos on the aurora u witnessed....quite a rare sight =)

[duckvader]

22nd Oct had amazingly clear skies, no wind but bloody freezing.. but aurora not prominent.. in fact it was only after returning to singapore and during post-process that I noticed aurora from around 7pm, but it was so faint that we couldnt see it in the camera LCD.. here's what I caught at around 11.30pm which could be view on the camera LCD. standing on the breakwater facing north. 30 second exposure.


24th oct, yeah, i suspect that we were on different breakwaters.. but should've stayed up longer! from your photos, post 2am auroras looks amazing! read somewhere that usually aurora activities at tromso area ends around midnight.. so we were surprised to still be able to view them at 3am from our hotel room..
here's what we saw on our walk back. shooting at 17mm, iso800, f2.8, 6sec.


regarding the music.. it's not really music per se.. hard to describe.. kinda like wind chimes or bells sounding very far away but everywhere around you, you keep hearing it but you cant detect the source, only the general direction.. so i wasnt sure if it was my imagination or not until i confirmed with my travel mate..and it lasted for hours! i started hearing it at around 1 to 2am when we were directly under the lights and when we got to our hotel at 3, we could still hear it..

btw, did you get the promotion fare from qatar also? $450 return to Oslo (fm Singapore)..
would love to fly to tromso in jan or feb and just camp out somewhere in the mountains without light pollution and enjoy the lights..let's keep our eyes peeled for fare promotions!

[jimmyleong]

beautiful photos....

[starfinder]

Thanks Duckvader for the info. Well, I still don't recall hearing any sounds from the aurora. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to trying to listen for sounds. Wish I did hear it!

Yup, it was freezing (around -3 degrees Celsius) on the first night I tried to view the aurora but didn't see it, i.e. Sat 22 Oct. However, the temperatures were quite mild when I did see the aurora on 24th and 26th Oct (around 4 degrees C and 9 degrees C respectively). I brought two thermometers to measure temperature. So I think it would dispel the notion which I've heard it said, even when I was there (by the locals) quite a few times, that "the aurora can be seen only when it is very cold", "it has to be cold", etc.

Transport: I took Finnair. It cost me around S$1650 for Singapore-Helsinki-Oslo, then Stockholm-Helsinki-Singapore. I also bought a domestic flight on SAS for Oslo-Tromso. On the return, I took a train down to Stockholm, from northern Sweden (I stayed 2 nights in Abisko). [Add: I found the whole trip quite tiring.]


Hey everyone, I've finally made the first movie from my timelapse shots. Over the 2 nights, I think I took around a dozen or more timelapse sequences.

Here is the first movie: http://vimeo.com/32146434
(I tried to put in an embed code but doesn't seem to work. Perhaps I would need to use YouTube for that).

The shots were taken on board the ship on Wed 26 Oct. Made from only 41 frames, each frame 5 seconds at ISO 1600, with a Canon lens at 11mm and at f/3.5. Facing south.
As the brightness was increased and the contrast adjusted in a batch process of all the frames, so that the movie can be seen easily, I must caution that this is not how bright it appeared when I saw it. I think I did not see most of the fainter elements.

Please concentrate on the aurora and try to ignore the moving landscape, as the ship was changing direction.


I'll try to add more videos when they're ready.

[starfinder]

Okay, here is another timelapse sequence, from only 51 frames.

2nd timelapse: http://vimeo.com/32207806

I took these at the seafront on the southern end of Tromso. I make a cameo appearance near the end (I got the idea from the BBC's aurora video of Joanna Lumley in the Land of the Northern Lights).

Once again, I really wish I saw the aurora's reds as bright as it appears in the timelapse photos. In reality I didn't, as the reds were very muted visually. I think a good analogy would be the Orion nebula (M42), which even short photo exposures show as pinkish, whereas visually even in the eyepiece of large telescopes it is seen as greyish white with perhaps a tinge of green only. I think our eyes are not sensitive to reds and do not see it unless its bright.

This timelapse sequence was made from 51 frames, each with a Canon 10-22mm lens at 10mm, 20 seconds, f/3.5, ISO 1600. Photos were not adjusted.

The Orion constellation is visible below centre, standing upright. Pleaides and Hyades above and to the right of it.

You can see how variable the aurora is!

How, what do you guys think? I got a few more timelapses to upload, in process.

[Gary]

Very nice videos! Thanks for sharing.

[Canopus Lim]

Wow. Awesome!

It must have been really great sight!

[KKK26]

wooo poisoned liao..who wanna organize a trip to there?