In late January this year, I traveled to the Lofoten Islands of northern Norway, hoping to capture some dramatic winter light and the aurora. Lofoten is located above the Arctic Circle, which increases your chances of seeing the aurora (the farther north you are, the more likely you are to see it). Lofoten is warmed by ocean currents that keep winter temperatures hovering near the freezing mark, which means you can photograph the aurora at night without enduring bone-chilling temperatures.
To photograph the aurora, several things must happen. You need some solar activity, favorable geomagnetic conditions over the earth’s poles, and a clear sky. Some key indicators of solar activity are increases in the speed and density of the solar wind, the location of the aurora oval in relationship to your location, and the orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field.
A south orientation of interplanetary magnetic field (Bz), with a negative (nT) value greater than -5 is essential for drawing the solar particles down to the polar areas instead of being deflected into space.
Aurora forecast graphics by Kah-Wai Linn Photography.
These items, along with the Kp index, are all good indicators to watch in the aurora forecast. The Kp index ranges from 1 to 9. The higher the number, the more likely you are to see the aurora, and the stronger the display is likely to be. A great resource for the aurora and solar forecast is SpaceWeatherLive.com | Real-time data and plots auroral activity | SpaceWeatherLive.com.
Even with a weak solar forecast, Lofoten is well positioned to have aurora (any night kp2 or greater). But you also need clear skies, which is the real wild card for this area. This region is notorious for a lot of cloudy, wet, windy weather in the winter, that oscillates between rain and snow.
So why travel all the way to Lofoten? The soft winter light in the day, and the chance to capture the aurora over amazing fjord-like, snow covered mountains that rise up vertically from the sea. So you might be wondering, how did it all turn out? My first three nights in Norway, I really didn’t see much aurora. Our first day was spent driving in fog and rain from the airport in Evenes to our red fisherman cabins (called rorbu) in Mortsund. The next two nights were overcast, as we had intermittent snow squalls that came and went throughout most of these days. Conditions improved for the second half of my trip, and we had intermittent sun during the day, and clear skies and the aurora for three consecutive nights. Most of the time the displays were weak and slow moving (usually less than Kp3), but there were occasional bursts of more intense and faster moving activity that were a real sight to behold! A nearly full moon made for nicely illuminated, snow-covered landscapes as foregrounds, and some nice blue color and moonlit clouds in the night skies–it also allowed for short exposure times and low ISO settings. All the images I made were taken with a Canon mirrorless R6 Mk II and a RF 15-35 mm f2.8 lens. Most of these captures were set to f2.8, ISO 1000-1600, and shutter speeds from 2 to 6 seconds. This camera body and lens combination did an excellent job of auto-focusing on lights or snow-covered landscape features at infinity to ensure sharp stars. Here are a few of my favorite images:
Aurora over our rorbu-inspired red cabins at Mortsund.
Aurora over snow covered mountains at Vik.
An amazing twister-like aurora at Myrland Beach
Aurora over the snow covered boulders at Unstad Beach
Fellow workshop friends capturing the aurora at Myrland Beach.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. You can view more of my favorite aurora images from this trip in my gallery Chasing the Northern Lights in the Lofoten Island of Norway.
Finally, I wanted to send out a huge thank you to our very-talented and wonderful workshop leaders, Kah-Wai Lin Photography and Matt Suess Photography (Matt and Whitney) for making this an awesome experience, and to our Norwegian guides Fred Hol and Odd-Are Hansen for their fun-loving and freely offered friendship. I wanted to thank Rachel Jones Ross (and Debbie) of Astralis Photography for sharing her night photography knowledge with me and my other cabin-mates. It was truly a great time.
Group photo courtesy of Matt Suess Photography
Related Images:
