The 22/1-2012 in Norway close to my hometown Bodø, between Mjelle and Festvåg with a water named Skarrvatnet

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.

When the clock was 22:51PM we had arrived to our new spot at Skarrvatnet when we found at our year`s first shoot :
[link]

When we first got there we saw some 4-5 lines with weak auroras and 1 of them quite active !
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 !

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 !

So to create that night feeling with vibrant auroras, i`ve got the ISO to 400 and F2.8 with 4 seconds exposure !

That weak line really was the sparkle to this amazing show we whitnessed

My primary target of the night was to get the colours as how it looks for our human eye !
And i did it I`ve set the WhiteBalance to 3330K and shot with colour space; AdobeRGB(1998) !

So capturing the movement and all the giant columns with the weak line`s sparkle in the background of Steigtind was really a success !
This picture was shot at 23:25PM. The show lasted to 00:09AM, i`ve shot some 132 pictures there

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 37 pictures of 415 from the night so i`m very happy with the shoot !


After this night i will be using AdobeRGB(1998) as my colour space only !

For more of my aurora pictures please see my folder :

[link]