Northern Lights

After a visit to a pizza bar near our hotel, and having the best pizza I've had for a few years, we made our way back to the hotel to get ready for our night expedition to see The Northern Lights.

In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis (or the northern lights), named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Galileo in 1619. Auroras seen within the auroral oval may be directly overhead, but from farther away, they illuminate the poleward horizon as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red, as if the Sun were rising from an unusual direction.

It was a four coach convoy that drove around the coast of Southern Iceland and up some farm track, goodness knows where, which was away from city lights, and a good place to see the lights. Our guide was very good and explained that the pictures one sees of the lights are always better than what the eye sees.

Film and digital exposure to auroral displays is fraught with difficulties, particularly if faithfulness of reproduction is an objective. Due to the different spectral energy present, and temporal changes occurring during the exposure, the results are somewhat unpredictable.

The lights did appear visible to the eye for a short while (5 mins!) Those of us with good quality cameras were able to take exposures of the lights not visible to the naked eye. For those interested, 'fast' lenses are best but I chose to go with my 15mm F4.5 Voigtlander lens. I was using exposures of 10 to 20 seconds, and Auto ISO (I didn't want too long exposures or the stars would blur).  Fortunately, the sensor is great and the results are acceptable. At least I got something, many didn't.