Aurora

[bish]

I was in Finland for 4 days last week. I hadn't gone specifically for the Northern Lights but as I was staying in a village 67 degrees North I did hope to catch something.  It did snow most of the time, which was very picturesque and ideal for dog sledding, snow boarding etc but not good for clear skies. There was one fairly clear night so I dragged my wife down to a frozen lake,  in a temperature of -18, to take a look.  Luckily I did think to scavenge an old 1100D just on the off chance, having sold all my decent camera gear last year and relying on my phone for holiday snaps.  The lights started out very faint but picked up after about 11pm. They were quite bright and you could see the green colour (although obviously not as green as in the 30  second exposure photo). A bit rough and ready as I had a stinking  cold and didn't really get the focus as good as I should have.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Lovely! I have never seen aurorae myself, but might visit a university in Finland soon. I will certainly be bringing the camera

[bish]

36 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Lovely! I have never seen aurorae myself, but might visit a university in Finland soon. I will certainly be bringing the camera

Yes make sure you have your camera with you.  It was about KP3 when I took the photo above.  I took a photo earlier in the evening when it wasn't evident to the naked eye and saw that it was just starting to show on the image so went back a bit later and it was much stronger.  It started out as just a very faint haze low down with no discernable colour, very easy to miss at first.

[happy-kat]

What an expansive frozen lake, great setting and you caught and luckily saw by eye, nice. I don't think I would be brave enough to stand on the lake.