The Norhtern Lights shoot of 22/1-2012 !

The Aurora Borealis lines up with Valviktinden "peak" !
A part of Mjellefjellene, (mountains range)

The 19/1-2012 a sunspot named 1401 sent a powerfull CME heading directly towards earth, it had a speed of 400 Km/second !

At around 17:50PM at sunday i saw the first lines just above my home !
So i rushed out with my gear and got some shots of the this auroras !
At 19:29PM i drowe to a fortress just at the other side of our local harbour and started shooting pictures there !
So finally i`ve also got my first good shots of northern lights above my hometown !
I was going to pick up a nice friend of me, she realy wanted to see this phenomen`s activity, light and colour ! She got a great night to see it !
Joining me and Gaute out for some hours of aurora chasing on Bodø`s northside.

Having bin around that local fortress we headed for the northern side of our city

When we first got there we saw some 4-5 lines with weak auroras and 1 of them was quite active ! This line was going to be the outbreak for this picture
It was perfect conditions! We had no moon, with a clear sky filled with stars !
15 Minutes later it was about to explode !
The weak lines looked like joining each others and growing in it`s activity.
It was a strong line which moved around up there, it had some columns and it was pulsating, so we knew there was going to be something ! At the same time a weak line started growing behind Steigtind, (the peak in the picture). It would have bin awesome if i could get a shot of vibrant auroras around Steigtind i thought, which i did
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And so the activity picked up quite fast around 23:19PM the weak line suddenly changed and got more intense with giant columns stretching over the dark peak !

This change in activity was going to do my picture ! The auroras was so vibrant and moved so much that it got all wiped out with shutters above 10 seconds !

That was an amazing show to whitness ! Well behind me was the Kjerringøy Island. Over the Island there where some activity pulsating from north east to south west while crossing behind Valviktinden peak.
During the activity around Steigtind peak the auroras behind us, again facing the island, was increasing in activity as well !

We where about to leave for a new location when the auroras behind Valviktinden peak started a great v-shape show !
So i turned my camera and started shooting that giant v-shape, got some 4 pictures of that !
After 2 minutes the 2 v-shaped lines crossed each others and made some curved spirals crossing each lines path !
So i turned my tripods head to a vertical shot to get them into the whole picture, having some sense of the size too
I`ve got 3 shots of that, the third picture is this one submitted !

shot at 00:09AM with F2.8 at 13 seconds and 640 ISO at 12mm, the zoom ring must have turned itself ! XD it was suppose to be at 11mm but i`m very happy with it anyway !

The Northern Lights got weaker around 00:53AM. I was back home again around 03:00AM so it was a long night shoot ! We had -7*C with 8m/s wind so probably -13 to -16*C !

I will be submitting more pictures from this night !
I have picked 50 pictures of 415 from the night so i`m very happy with the shoot !


For more of my aurora pictures please see my folder :
[link]