Chasing auroras in Tromsø - 13 - 16 December

This was my third trip in Tromsø in winter, and as for the two previous trips, we saw nice auroras. Tromsø is certainly one of the very best place in Europe to watch auroras. But Tromsø in winter has much more to offer.

Ersfjordbotn

Days are rather short when we approach the winter solstice, but you can get around from 11:00 to 14:00, giving plenty of time to explore the fjords around...

Panoramimc views of the Skitntinden (1,042 m) at Kattfjord

Ersfjordbotn

Ersfjordbotn

It is very nice to take the Tromsø cable car and climb  on top of the mountain on the east of the city. The view is terrific. The cable car runs until 23:00 in winter months to allow for spotting auroras from the top.

Tromsø south from the cable car station 

A few lenticular orographic altocumulus clouds as I have learned through the ENV MOOC on meteorology for sailors. 

From the cable car station

14:30, arrival of the Hurtigruten to Tromsø

Above os the Artic cathedral in Tromsø. Very nice from outside ant not really worth the money asked to visit it inside... The architect got inspired by the shape of the Håja island out of Sommarøy when designing the church.

Håja island

The aurora hunt

After couple of trips in the artic circle to hunt for auroras, we know now how to best proceed. First, you need to be as far up north as feasible. Tromsø and Alta are probably the best choices in Scandinavia as they are located on the corona of aurora activity. Then, the weather needs to be without too much clouds, which again is often the case when you go far north and enter the polar Hadley cell. In addition, better to be there when it not full moon as the auroras are very sensitive to lights in the environment.

Once this is set, check the aurora activity forecast at the Aurora Service Europe website. On their forecast page, you see in realtime the likelihood of watching auroras if the weather permits.

Aurora forecast from the Aurora Service Europe site.

The picture above was extracted on 19 December, 22:50 CET, meaning 21:50 in universal time. The forecast was last updated at 21:45. As you can see, the north of Norway is currently in the highlighted zone, indicating a good chance to see auroras. Each radial segment on the map represents two hours. Therefore, you can deduct that the good time for watching auroras in Tromsø today started 4 hours ago and will decrease in the next two hours. In two to three hours, it will increase again as the earth will rotate, even though the higher activity will be located more up north. In short, this site tells you when to go.

The, you can consult tot site Norway-light.com. For Tromsø tonight, the site says Go! The advantage of this site is that it integrates the aurora activity as described above, with the situation of the cloud cover on the different cities in norther Norway.

 
Finally, you can consult live webcams to check for aurora activities in the area. Below is the realtime webcam from the Radisson blu in Tromsø. The screen capture below was taken few minutes after the previous two picture above. It does work as you can  see an aurora over the city. Too bad that we are already back in Stockholm!

Screen capture from Tromsø Radisson Blu webcam, 23:15, 19/12/2018

Now, better than watching the aurora on a webcam, we got out when we were there. You obviously need a car to get out of the city and get rid as much as possible of the light pollution. Then, the spot should ideally be oriented with a clear view northwest, where auroras are most likely to start.

Tromsø island, in the centre and the 3 spots we used for watching auroras.

The first evening, we went to Kaldfjord, on a parking along the coastal road. The sky remained quite cloudy and we could only spot very fainted auroras towards the northwest. The (bad) picture below is only interesting as you can see a quite dark blue aurora below the green one, a type I had never seen before.

Auroras from Kaldfjord. Note the blue one on the horizon.

On the second evening, we went up the mountain to Finnvikvatnet, a frozen lake on Kvaløysletta. We saw nice auroras until midnight.

Auroras on the way to Kvaløysletta

Auroras, from Kvaløysletta

Finally, for our third and last evening, we went to Tønvik. The temperature dropped dramatically, and again we we happy to watch very scenic auroras.

Auroras, from Tønsvik

As for taking pictures of auroras, in fact, it is quite straight forward. You need a good tripod, quite stable, to avoid that the wind may make it move. This is what happened to me for the first aurora picture above which is not very sharp. Then, use the widest angle lens that you have or zoom out to the widest angle. Then, put the camera in manual mode, the ISO around 640 to minimise noise, the aperture as low as you can (2.8 for me), and disable the autofocus while setting the focus to infinity. I started with a 30 second exposure, which produced a picture over-burnt. I then decreased the speed to 15", which gave a perfect result. Don't forget to use the timer to take the picture, as pressing on the button of the camera may make it move. With a few trial and errors, most cameras could do a pretty good job even in such challenging situation.

For taking picture of people at the same time as auroras, set the flash on while keeping the long exposure time. I decrease the strength of the flash by 2 levels to avoid giving the impression of an artificial picture.