Wednesday 26 January 2011

Northern Amazingness


This is my second trip to Finland.  The first time, I was determined to see the Northern Lights.  We went on a night snowmobile safari just to look for them but it was too cloudy, and in the village there was too much light pollution.  We decided not to do a night safari again this time, so I didnt think there was much chance we'd see them this time.  But last night was beautifully clear, so after pizza and beer, we decided to take a walk towards the lake where we were told you could sometimes see them.  As we were walking, we were in awe of the number of stars you could see, thousands and thousands compared to in the UK.  We spotted the northern star, then as we were walking further out into the darkness, we saw a greenish haze under the northern star, kind of flickering.  There were too many trees though, so we carried on walking (getting very very cold) almost out to the lake.  When we turned around and looked where we had come from, we saw them, and wow.  What we had seen earlier was nothing in comparison.  It was like a huge rainbow over our heads with a greenish light, and either end flickered like a candle.  It was quite spectacular, we just stood there with our mouths wide open!!!  I tried to get pics but my hands were too cold & I can't really do long exposure with my point&shoot/no tripod.  The lights faded after about 5 minutes, although there was still a green glow on the horizon on the walk home.  We might try again if we get another clear night.  What we saw was similar to the pics above although not quite as wide or bright as obviously these are time lapse pics.

But wow, I feel so incredibly lucky.  They were so beautiful.  A very special moment.

2 comments:

  1. You are very lucky. I've always wanted to see the Northern Lights, but the closest I've come is a tiny green haze on the horizon once on a visit to the Isle of Skye.

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  2. Always wanted to see the lights... what a gorgeous photo!

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