Northern Lights

I had always wanted to view the aurora but it doesn't seem possible . It's too far , it's too cold ... Things became more possible since my colleague Tony went to Lapland in 2012 and saw the aurora and posted in Facebook . My Singapore colleague also went in march 2012 and saw it too.  Finally after much planning,  shopping and eagerness , Kasey and I set off for the Artic on 27 February 2013.

 Night no 1 of hunt ... Glass igloo

We weren't sure how a aurora looks like and spent the whole night in the glass igloo staring at the sky .As there weren't many stars that night , we knew its low chance of spotting it. By 11 pm we were dozing off in and attempt to keep awake , Kasey and I start putting on our winter clothes on,  as a faith that aurora will turn up . However by midnight,  nothing came . We only saw green mist a few stars ... At 1 10 am, we finally saw 2 stripes of light across the sky and confirmed to ourselves that's the aurora. In addition we also saw a shooting star flying across the lights before they disappeared . Sometime around 3 am I thought I saw some bright green spot behind some trees.

 

 

Night 2 Ice Hotel. Clear bright day with a bit of snow in the evening  (-5C in the Ice Room, -30C outside)

There were a lot of activities at the Ice Hotel . Exhibits of the ice rooms, walking by the river , briefing on how to sleep in the Ice room ... We settled down to wait for the light after our early dinner . It was a cold night and there a was even a bit of snow in the evening ,which got us worried as snow would mean low chance of light sightings. We spent our time walking from the viewing gallery and to the warm dressing room . The viewing gallery was pretty empty as the night was still young . It was cold and windy outside the warm dressing room , around - 20 degrees . I checked from Facebook there is 40%chance of aurora that night and was determined to catch it . By 10 pm Kasey and I had walked back and forth the viewing gallery and dressing room about 3 times . We know we looked a bit silly walking back and forth and even once went to our ice room to warm ourselves but being a ice room it's -5 , not much of a help . At 10 pm while at the dressing room , I checked on the live web there is a display if aurora over at Abisko about 100km away . I showed Kasey and we hurried to dress warmly again and went to the viewing gallery . There was only one other viewer with a professional camera and only a green mist in the sky . I went over to chat with him on his camera , how it looks etc etc . To our surprise the light green mist over the hills is the aurora and it looks a sparking green arch with orange flames at the side from the camera lens. Hmm so what's on camera is so much more spectacular  then the naked eye I think the guy was feeling very cold ( he's been there for one hour) and wanted some peace from me and decided to rest up a bit first and he walked away with his camera.

Kasey and I waited alone in the gallery and 5 minutes later , the sky showed up a a bigger green mist and grew bigger and bigger and higher . The wind blew and the mist twirled round and round . It was from the left of sky to the right side of sky . It went from light green to green . Kasey and I clapped our hands , hi five each other and shouted yeah !!  The green mist then folded like a dove/ wing   ,  then exploded in the air and straight lines of green fireworks  fell from the sky to the ground . This went on for 10 minutes . Our newly made UK friend rushed  up to the gallery in time to catch the tail end of the display . We shouted to him hurry up, quick,  quick . Another couple who had already gone to bed at the Ice room rushed up in their thermal also caught the end of the aurora. Though I ran down to try to catch the camera guy, unfortunately I couldn't find him. 

The 2nd display of the spectacular aurora came back 15 min later and the same few of us saw another magnificent display of Mother Nature a second time that night .

 

 

 

 

 

 

( note that the photo is taken from web for the same night, same location, from another photographer)

 

Night  no 3  .  Abisko. Bright day and clear night 

We stayed in Abisko mountain lodge on day 3 to 5  of our hunt and they provided activists and one of them is snow shoeing. We climbed up the mountain behind the lodge in our snow shoes . I got used to walking in the snow in our snow shoe after a whole and in fact became quite warm during the climb . We stopped and rested and saw some green mist and arch but nothing intense . The walking group and guide expected some burst of lights throughout the walk but none came . We had a few stop rests , had some hot pear juices , warmed ourselves over the fire that Klas,  the guide built and listened to his myths of the aurora ...... By 11.30 pm we made our way back to the lodge a bit disappointed there is no light but happy with walking in the snow in the night 

 

Night no 4. Abisko  Snowy day, bright night 

We met some Singaporean in our stay at Absiko and had dinner with them on night 4 . After our main course a lady from the Abisko sky station came in and stared at the window . We asked if there is anything and she answered yes . Kasey and I wore our down jacket and rushed out of the dinning room and there is it , a bright green arch across the dark sky. Some later stage the arch became green mist and after a whole it's a arch again. On the far right of the sky we saw a very bright green big spot . Aurora.  We stayed on but eventually the arch disappeared into the cold night and we didn't see any aurora that evening. 

(Photos from Abisko guest )

 

Night 5 - Abisko  . Bright Clear Day, Windy Snow at night

It was a bright clear day on day 5 but by dinner time , the clear sky has turned to windy snowy conditions . We stayed up to 10 pm at the warm guest house sitting room but wasn't too positive that the weather would change to bright and clear . We went back to our cabin at 10 30'pm . We sighted some green mist from our cabin but were not too sure if that's the aurora until the next morning when another guest confirmed it was.

 

This is by far one of my most existing trip . I was anxious and nervous that I could not catch the aurora . After all we did spent a lot of money on this trip and we have hopes . 2nd night was the best auora display over  the last few years as confirmed by photographers on the web . Even though we didn't catch another spectacular display again,  I'm contented that we have seen the best.

I also discovered that what we see on the naked eye is so much less intense that that from the camera . There is too much hype in what's on the camera . All in all its a fantastic trip what's next for me?  (Polar bear hunt, Alaska).