Thank you, gentlemen.
Extraordinary!
What's lighting the camera side of the building?
Peter, my friend Börkur (whose ancestral family farm is seen here) used the car's dimmed headlights. The illumination wasn't direct.
Must be fantastic to see in person. How do remember to set up when watching something like that?
If you go prepared, it doesn't take long to get up and running.
Wow, that is really striking. I would think living there gives you much better odds of seeing something like that, instead of just visiting for a short time.
That's true. Although if one is mobile and flexible you can find a 'hole' in the sky. For example, when we started out in Reykjavík it was extremely windy and there were large patches of clouds. But 100 Kms and 90 mins away, we got this scene and it was still and cold (around -6º C).
I've read some stories about people going to the far north to see auroras and being disappointed. One article in particular pointed out that when you see them in person they rarely look as impressive as they do in photographs, because of the camera's ability to gather light on the sensor over time. How did this one look in person, Rajan?
It depends on the strength which depends on solar activity. There are years when the sun is very active. If the activity is strong, the displays are spectacular and dynamic, with lights rippling across the sky in a kind of celestial dance. At other times, you will see wisps of mild green moving across but only the camera's long exposure will fully pick up the colour. In the case of the photo above, the strong display lasted just 5 minutes or so before it went into the weak mode. On a couple of occasions I have seen fantastic displays out of the Icelandair window between Baffin Bay, Greenland and Iceland.
So that's why you moved to Iceland, Rajan.
Very nice,
I've seen moderate Aurora in Western Massachusetts in autumn about forty years ago, but not in Iceland in June of 1974.
That must have been an unusually strong year for you to get it that far south.