AstroLandscapes #42 (The Aurora Files) - Dreaming in Senja

[FenlandPaul]

Like many people, I have for a long time harboured a dream to see the northern lights “properly”.  For me, this dream was kindled by a kindly man called Ron Livesey, who used to be the Aurora and NLC Section lead for the BAA.  In my early teens, after my folks moved to the north east of England, I would exchange letters with him about how to see the northern lights and NLC; at the time I had no joy with the former, but I had some success with the latter, even when they weren’t such a well observed phenomenon.

About a year ago, I decided I needed to do something about the repeated “I’d love to see them properly one day” response I’d give when people asked if I’d ever seen the lights.  Having got into landscape astrophotography in 2020, it seemed logical that I’d plan a trip to capture images of the aurora as well as see them with the naked eye.  Research of locations had me examine Alaska (too far), Iceland (too high a risk of cloud) and the far north of Norway (possibly just right).  I settled on Senja island, off the north west coast of Norway, within the Arctic Circle and fairly accessible from the UK.  Timing was dictated principally by work commitments, with the snowy (and bitter) February-March time being too busy for me to take the time off easily; hence I settled on October, which was slightly riskier in terms of typical cloud cover, but I was prepared to drive some considerable distance if needed to seek out clear skies.

A week before my trip, the whole affair was thrown into some jeopardy when my best mate and travel partner contracted covid and seemed to be suffering; thankfully (and selfishly) I hadn’t met him a couple of days before for a planning session!  We decided to leave it to the last minute to see how he was, and on the Friday before the Saturday of our flights, he called to properly pull out as his whole family had now gone down.  I started to readjust to the idea of going solo, but it was likely some of the more extreme mountain-top shooting locations were now off-limits - I’m a competent hiker, but it wouldn’t be fair on my family to head into unfamiliar wilderness alone at night!

But then in a flash of inspiration my wife suggested she might be able to come instead.  I looked blankly at her, failing completely to comprehend why she’d want to tag along on an essentially nocturnal “holiday”, with only a peripheral interest in the night sky, no suitable clothing and only very basic accommodation booked. And besides, with two school-age kids I just didn’t see logistically how it would work. An hour later, she’d convinced her parents to drive over from the other side of the country that same day and look after the kids for the week, we’d navigated the needlessly complex process of switching passenger names, and we were looking forward to a completely unexpected trip together.

So after a sleepless-through-excitement night, we woke early to head to Heathrow and took our two flights to Tromso.  Arriving just as dusk was falling, we picked up our hire car, remortgaged to do a sparse-but-adequate supermarket shop, and started the 3 hour drive to Senja island.

About 20 minutes before we arrived, once it was properly dark and coinciding with delirium, we began to notice what seemed like long, moonlit streaks of cloud in the sky, initially barely perceptible but then very clearly.  Trying to keep my eyes on the road, we could see the streaks were forming wavy ribbons in places.  Pressing on to the cabin we’d booked, which, it turned out, was very tucked away down a dirt track and not easily found at night, the final few minutes of the drive were pregnant with the expectation of what we’d see once we stepped out of the car.

Ribbons and curtains of a strong milky light - much more obvious than the Milky Way from a dark location - seemed to wave subtley as if on a gentle breeze. We threw the bags out of the car and into the cabin, quickly made the beds and then in an instant we were outside on the wooden terrace outside the cabin.  As our eyes adjusted and we looked up, a swirl of activity was taking place right overhead and, within seconds, we saw our first auroral corona - an incredible introduction to visual auroral observing!  My wife’s description of the corona was very apt: “like a ballerina’s tutu” - the intricate patterns morphed in seconds into twists and curls and spirals, before dissipating as ribbons of activity broke out elsewhere.  

As I grabbed my camera kit and started to set up some timelapses, my wife had the right idea - fetching a chair, a warm blanket and just sitting back drinking in the view (and also taking some irritatingly impressive pictures on her mobile phone!).  Meanwhile I grappled with settings for an unfamiliar subject (despite doing tonnes of reading before heading out!) and compositions across the fjord over which the cabin looked out.  And all the while just trying to drink in the spectacle that I’d waited so long to see.

So over the next few days I’ll be posting a number of my favourite images from those 6 days, during which we had 5 nights with clear skies and belting aurorae.  And I’ll try to narrate some of the adventures we had in capturing the images.

To start with, here’s a simple image from that first night - my first ever night under a proper aurora display.  It’s taken from the side of the fjord outside out cabin; when I saw the colours on the back of the camera, the whole trip had already been worthwhile.  After capturing it, I left the camera timelapsing away, discovering after a couple of hours that fjords are tidal, leading to wet feet on my first night as I returned to recover the camera gear!!

I’ve also copied below a link to a compilation of the timelapses I captured over the 5 nights.  I was there primarily to make images but timelapse is such an effective way to capture the movement that I made sure I had a few ticking away each night.  

For the image, which I’ve called simply “Dreaming in Senja”, reflecting both the natural beauty and the incredible tiredness while shooting, I used a Canon 6D and Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens. Foreground was a 75s exposure at ISO6400, stopped down to f/4.  Sky was a 10s exposure at ISO6400 at f/2.8. Edited in Lightroom and blended in Photoshop.

The timelapse includes various exposures , ISOs and intervals to suit the conditions, but either with Samyang 14mm or Samyang 24mm lenses.  You can see how in some sequences the aurora gets so bright as to blow out the highlights in part - rather than interrupt the sequence,  chose to let it keep running and enjoy the substorm with my own eyes!

Hope you enjoy! ✨📷💚

 

 

[Second Time Around]

Wow!  Beautiful pics, beautifully told!

I absolutely love the time lapse, and can't wait for more.

Many congratulations indeed!

[davew]

Another wow from me too !

Dave.

[Mick J]

What Steve said  ^^

always good work from you Paul but  wow wow wow

[Ibbo!]

Great stuff.

[Kon]

Stunning time-lapse! Looking forward to more pics.

[clarkpm4242]

'To start with'!!! 

Lovely write up, and of course gorgeous, gorgeous pictures.  So good to see them on a large screen 

Thank you @FenlandPaul !

[FenlandPaul]

1 hour ago, clarkpm4242 said:

'To start with'!!! 

Lovely write up, and of course gorgeous, gorgeous pictures.  So good to see them on a large screen 

Thank you @FenlandPaul !

Thanks for your encouragement as always, Paul.  😊

[Elp]

Stunning work

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I particularly like the defocussed aurora shot at the beginning and end of the video, inspired.