Sighting the Aurora Borealis

[fountainhall]

A trip beyond the Arctic Circle is unlikely to be on any poster's travel en route to Thailand, but seeing the Aurora Borealis might be on the odd bucket list. Last month I took a ferry up the Norwegian Coast past the Arctic Circle to the lovely little town of Tromso. Sadly, the weather was lousy for the entire 4 days and there was no sighting of the Northern Lights. I then crossed - in a very roundabout way - to the far north of Finland. The tiny village of Nellim is almost as far as you can go without being dumped into the Arctic Sea. But it is said to be one of the best places to get a view of the Aurora. Once again, though, despite snow and temperatures down to -20C at night, low cloud descended in the evenings to make sightings impossible. I had eventually written off any sightings until on my last afternoon the sky gradually cleared. At 10:00 pm along with a young Irish couple staying at the same little hotel I parked myself on a frozen lake and waited. By 11:00 we noticed a quick flicker. Soon we were treated to a glorious Lights display for almost two hours. Breathtaking and quite amazing!

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr120.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr120.jpg.html)

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr101.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr101.jpg.html)

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr107.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr107.jpg.html)

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr112.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr112.jpg.html)

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr108.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr108.jpg.html)

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr116.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr116.jpg.html)

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr118.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr118.jpg.html)

The sky was clearer at sunrise and sunset giving some wonderful views.

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr95.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr95.jpg.html)

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr80.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr80.jpg.html)

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l597/fountainhall/Scandinavia2014_mr92.jpg (http://s1125.photobucket.com/user/fountainhall/media/Scandinavia2014_mr92.jpg.html)

From Europe, Finnair is often one of the cheapest tickets to Thailand, especially business class. Transfers at Helsinki are as short as 35 to 40 minutes and long haul flights will be held if your incoming flight is slightly delayed on arrival. The flight from Helsinki to Nellim is 80 minutes. I booked months in advance and the round trip cost тВм140. The lovely Nellim Wilderness Lodge Hotel was US$75 per night.

[Rogie]

I enjoyed reading your report Fountainhall. . .

. . .which prompted me to chase up this phenomenon.

Apparently maps are available to tell you what your chances are on a particular night:

[attachment=0:595pvb3s]Northern lights map.jpg[/attachment:595pvb3s]

Another strange aspect is sound. Does the aurora make a noise?


For the first time, researchers have located where the sounds associated with the Northern Lights are created. The auroral sounds that have been described in folktales and by wilderness wanderers are formed about 70 meters above the ground level in the measured case. Researchers located the sound sources by installing three separate microphones in an observation site where the auroral sounds were recorded. They then compared sounds captured by the microphones and determined the location of the sound source.

Did you hear anything Fountainhall? The article goes on to say:


These sounds are so soft that one has to listen very carefully to hear them and to distinguish them from the ambient noise.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 093048.htm (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120709093048.htm)

There is a link to a You Tube clip which is pretty disappointing. If only the lights were accompanied by lovely ethereal sounds . . . how about the Star Trek theme?

Ok, beam me down to reality Mr Scott! If I am ever so lucky as to see the Northern Lights, watching the skies in silence - with just the wind for company - will do very nicely I reckon.

[fountainhall]

Glad you enjoyed the photos. Yes, I had seen various maps but these tend to be useful only for a period of a few days. At my hotel in Nellim they had a noticeboard listing the prospect of sightings up to 4 days in advance. I did not hear any noise. I guess this was partly due to there being some wind rustling the trees so it was not completely silent when I was there. Also, at those temperatures you need to cover your ears!

2014/15 seems to be one of the best times to witness the Aurora for many years with Feb/Mar 2015 the next favoured months. I have seen some articles recommending the Hurtigruten ferry cruises up the Norwegian coast as good for sightings. Lousy for photos, though. To get an even reasonably decent photo, you need a time exposure of between 2 and 10 seconds. Even in calm waters, ships will always have slight movements.

[scottish-guy]

[youtube:tdnd6cgi]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZh4GMr4rEU[/youtube:tdnd6cgi]

[fountainhall]

Well, if I'd known you could see the Northern Lights off Aberdeen, I could have saved myself a ton of cash!! :(

[francois]

A trip beyond the Arctic Circle is unlikely to be on any poster's travel en route to Thailand, but seeing the Aurora Borealis might be on the odd bucket list.
.

Does a flight over the North Pole on the way to Thailand count?

Your photos of the Aurora reminds me of a time I was staying with a group of friends on the coast of Maine/USA.
One chilly night I wandered outside the lodge and saw all these weird lights in the sky which mesmerized me.
Next day my friends commented that there were many news reports of the Aurora and the wished they had seen them. I said nothing!

[Rogie]

I said nothing!

Francois, you clearly weren't aware of the advice proffered by Wilderness Scotland!


If you see the Northern Lights then donтАЩt forget to tell your friends. Share your pictures and videos on Facebook, theyтАЩll be just as stoked as you that youтАЩve seen them, itтАЩs on a lot of peopleтАЩs wish lists.

http://www.wildernessscotland.com/blog/ ... -scotland/ (http://www.wildernessscotland.com/blog/northern-lights-scotland/)

Here is a sample map of North America. The area marked as 'good' on that particular Saturday night is well south of Maine, which was actually marked 'poor' that night: interestingly the 'good' zone is on the east coast so whether that's just coincidence or whether the east coast fares better than other parts of N. America I'd have no idea.

[attachment=0:3lg75dab]590x393_04131348_page.jpg[/attachment:3lg75dab]

[Jellybean]

Thanks for posting details of your trip up to the Arctic Circle fountainhall, itтАЩs not a destination we hear about very often on this forum. It made for an enjoyable and interesting read. Thanks too for the spectacular photos.

Thanks also to Rogie for drawing our attention to the website which predicts where and when you can see the Aurora Borealis.

And Scottish-guy, what can I say? Not exactly what I was expecting when I clicked on your YouTube clip. LOL! But your post and the OP brought back two memories, one from the distant past and one from just a couple of weeks ago.

I must have been aged between 7 and 10 and was out playing hide-and-seek one wintery night in Scotland. When I looked up at the sky I saw a brilliant, but worrying, light display. IтАЩm sure I had never seen anything like it before. When I got home that night my father explained it was the Aurora Borealis, sometimes called the northern lights. I rather doubt I fully understood the cause at that time.

And my most recent memory is from a few weeks ago. I was sitting outside Starbucks, in the Silom Complex shopping mall in Bangkok, reading a book and enjoying an iced chocolate drink. A fellow customer, whom IтАЩd seen on several occasions, started talking to me. He is originally from China, but now lives in Australia. When I said I was originally from Scotland, he told me he had been on holiday to Scotland and mentioned the several destinations he had visited. He also said heтАЩd picked up a few local songs. He then proceeded to sing The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen. At first at a low volume, then increasingly getting louder and louder. Then he stood up, as if he was at a concert hall and sang it with full gusto. At first I was slightly embarrassed because I could see that our fellow customers were showing some signs of irritation, but as he continued singing I was truly impressed. IтАЩll freely admit that I also had a tear in my eye. I recall my parents and other family members singing that song when I was a child. A small crowd started to form and he was given a rousing applause at the end. We exchanged emails and has been in touch since he returned to Australia.

So thanks again for the memories and the photos.

[christianpfc]

Thanks for sharing. I would love to see them, but will not travel north, don't even have winter clothes. But to my surprise just learnt that they can be seen in Northern Germany (all the time I spend in Germany, I was not aware of that, and while partial eclipses of the sun and moon were announced in the newspaper, never read or heard about northern lights being visible in Northern Germany).

But there is a natural phenomenon that looks similar: blue flames of burning sulfur at Ijen volcano in Indonesia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijen and that's high on my list, will probably go on my next border run.

[scottish-guy]

Jellybean - thanks for your acknowledgement, and glad you enjoyed the clip.

I normally only bring a tear to the eye when I take my pants off (tears of laughter, unfortunately) - so I'm impressed your Chinese friend can manage it just by singing a song :))

It astonishes me that educated and well-travelled people do not appear to know that the Aurora Borealis can readily be seen from Scotland. Did they attend the same geography class as George W Bush? :))

I guess if I tell them that Aberdeen is the richest city in the UK outside London, and has the highest rate of millionaires and multi- millionaires ( i.e. >┬г20m) by population INCLUDING London, they will be similarly surprised!

:ymparty:

[Jellybean]

. . . glad you enjoyed the clip
I did indeed Scottish-guy. IтАЩm a sentimental old reprobate. IтАЩll shed a tear at the drop of a Tam oтАЩShanter. ;)

[scottish-guy]

Shudder to think what you'd do at the drop of a pair of trews, dear

:))

[scottish-guy]

Bringing us up to date:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-34473020

O:-)