Illuminated nights

3. February 2015

Describing winter in Iceland with 3 words: frozen, wind & Northern lights. When the nightly sky starts glowing above you, you even forget about being chilled to the bone.

Aurora borealis or Northern lights usually occur in high latitude regions. Physically seen, they are simply caused by charged particles like electrons and protons entering the atmosphere. Northern lights come in different appearances: some like a diffuse background glow, others like a band stretching over the sky, even others occur as waving “curtains”.

This picture was taken at Seljalandsfoss using a fisheye lens.To capture Northern lights with your camera, you need a tripod, full aperture and some long-time exposure (10-30 sec) dependent on the brightness of the Aurora. You might also like to join Lucile’s Photo101 Rehab Clinic.

In Iceland the winter nights are either stormy or colorful, but never boring. Even nights with low Aurora activities can be spectacular:

The lonely and often rough landscapes perfectly underline and highlight this nightly phenomenon.

Which one is your favorite picture? Have you ever experienced Aurora borealis? Isn’t it amazing?

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