Day 6: Tromso
23 Feb 2024 14:27![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nwhikerDavid wasn't feeling great, so we didn't do much during the day. We wandered around town, down to the Tromso harbor, figured out which boat we'd be sailing on the following evening, but overall just took it easy.
Then we dressed in our warmest clothes -layers and layers- and went to catch the minubus tour that would hopefully lead us to a spot where we could see the Aurora.
The ovation model -that's the one with the green donut- shows that on most nights, there is an aurora over Tromso (exceptions are sometimes nights of very strong events, where viewing shifts further south). To see if, what you really need is... clear weather.
We ended up driving about a hour or so out of Tromso.
As soon as we got there, the guide took some photos (as did we) to see if anything was visible, and sure nuff, there was some very vague but very real green glow visible on camera, though nothing was visible naked eye. So wood was taken out, fires made, hot drinks drunk as we waited to see if the aurora would strengthen.
For the longest time, it didn't look good, and everyone was getting a bit restless. It was quite chilly and I'll fully admit that sitting around in the snow wasn't my idea of pleasant evening, LOL. Even with gear, I was cold.
I noticed some new vertical-ish clouds in the sky, but didn't think much of them until one of the guides noticed them and yup, lights!
It was so cool.
I got some ok photos with my phone, but dh has the good ones on the computer, I'll try to share those when I can.
In real life... it looked like clouds, but not quite, and you could almost just see the color, as if it was juuuuuust out of view. I can't quite explain, but for example, I wasn't surprised when I saw the red in some of the photos, even though if I looked for it in the sky, I wouldn't have seen it.
And then there is David's photo. He actually had the shutter open when the shooting star on the right of the photo blazed by. The expensive lens we bought for astrophotography? Worth every penny! In one photo, he even got a spiral galaxy.
We got back late, but it was a truly special evening, even with the cold. The guides were great, my only complaint was that they did not remind people in the bus to try and stay out of others' long exposures, not to turn on flash lights or headlamps randomly. I remember a star gazing event at Crater Lake where the rangers handed out small pieces of red film and told people to put them on anything bright. This would have been a good thing here!
But yeah. Thrilled.
Then we dressed in our warmest clothes -layers and layers- and went to catch the minubus tour that would hopefully lead us to a spot where we could see the Aurora.
The ovation model -that's the one with the green donut- shows that on most nights, there is an aurora over Tromso (exceptions are sometimes nights of very strong events, where viewing shifts further south). To see if, what you really need is... clear weather.
We ended up driving about a hour or so out of Tromso.
As soon as we got there, the guide took some photos (as did we) to see if anything was visible, and sure nuff, there was some very vague but very real green glow visible on camera, though nothing was visible naked eye. So wood was taken out, fires made, hot drinks drunk as we waited to see if the aurora would strengthen.
For the longest time, it didn't look good, and everyone was getting a bit restless. It was quite chilly and I'll fully admit that sitting around in the snow wasn't my idea of pleasant evening, LOL. Even with gear, I was cold.
I noticed some new vertical-ish clouds in the sky, but didn't think much of them until one of the guides noticed them and yup, lights!
It was so cool.
I got some ok photos with my phone, but dh has the good ones on the computer, I'll try to share those when I can.
In real life... it looked like clouds, but not quite, and you could almost just see the color, as if it was juuuuuust out of view. I can't quite explain, but for example, I wasn't surprised when I saw the red in some of the photos, even though if I looked for it in the sky, I wouldn't have seen it.
And then there is David's photo. He actually had the shutter open when the shooting star on the right of the photo blazed by. The expensive lens we bought for astrophotography? Worth every penny! In one photo, he even got a spiral galaxy.
We got back late, but it was a truly special evening, even with the cold. The guides were great, my only complaint was that they did not remind people in the bus to try and stay out of others' long exposures, not to turn on flash lights or headlamps randomly. I remember a star gazing event at Crater Lake where the rangers handed out small pieces of red film and told people to put them on anything bright. This would have been a good thing here!
But yeah. Thrilled.
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Date: 25 Feb 2024 01:19 (UTC)