Northern lights from Spitsbergen

[wvreeven]

Happy new year all! For me the old year ended and the new year started in a most spectacular way. I am currently waiting to board the airplane taking me from Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen (the largest island of Svalbard) back to less arctic regions. The past three days have been cloudless with lots of northern lights in the sky. We saw a Quarantid fireball on December 31 and several Messier objects with our binoculars. Two photo's included from December 31 and January 1.


Clear skies,

Wouter

[Howard B]

Hi Wouter - amazing photos, and I'm sure they looked so much better in person.

[skyraider]

WOW! Thanks for sharing. That is spectacular. Not that good for deep sky observing lol, but spectacular none the less. I have only ever seen one significant display of the northern lights and that was from North Carolina (of all places)!

[wvreeven]

Before going to Spitsbergen I had seen northern lights from the Netherlands several times. Also some green but much more red. However, nothing compared to what we saw from Spitsbergen!

[Dragan]

WOW! Thanks for sharing. That is spectacular. Not that good for deep sky observing lol, but spectacular none the less. I have only ever seen one significant display of the northern lights and that was from North Carolina (of all places)!

Josh, you are NOT kidding when you say it isn't good for deep sky observing. Several years ago I traveled to a location near the site of the Nebraska Star Party for an extended weekend of observing. Of the 5 nights we had, only one night was exceptionally clear. And right on queue, the below happened. Talk about bittersweet! My observing partner was excited beyond belief and I couldn't be more aggravated that I couldn't observe! :angry::D

Nevertheless, we made the best of it and enjoyed the view.

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