On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Christopher Mathews
A few more views of the northern lights from various sites in Iceland.
An unfortunate trick of evolution is that human color vision degrades significantly in the dark. Seeing the green and purple glow of the aurora generally requires either very good night color vision – which not everyone has – or a very dark night. It helps to get out of town and to resist the urge to check your cell phone.
Cameras don’t work the same way and can capture the lights in all their glory even when it’s not totally dark. Thanks for letting me share their magic with you!
Pastel lights on the shores of Iceland´s largest natural lake. This was at the beginning of a particularly powerful geomagnetic storm; unfortunately, the clouds closed in a few minutes later, hiding it from view. Aurora hunting is not for the easily-frustrated.
The answer to the age-old question “how you gonna keep ’em down on the farm” may be to install some special lighting.
The aurora forecast for this particular evening was not particularly good. As this busload of tourists discovered, the forecast was incorrect.
The aurora whirls above a small village just south of the international airport. It was very cold, but somehow I didn’t really mind.
This former ski lodge, now undergoing renovation, may look familiar: it’s where Ben Stiller got his skateboard in the 2013 movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”
The skies light up over the town of Borgarnes, about an hour north of the capital city.
Industrial light – and magic! Lady Aurora visits a hydropower plant in southern Iceland.
Jubilant and chaotic, the people of Iceland put on a wonderful fireworks display every New Year’s Eve. Nature handles the other nights.
Thursday Night Open Thread: Trixie at 9 Weeks
satby
These are wonderful! Thanks for sharing.
JeanneT
Thank you for posting these – just stunning!
JPL
Wow!
Betty
Yes, magic. And a different show every time!
debbie
I know it sounds trite, but how awesome these photographs are! Every time I see a photograph of the Northern Lights, I can’t help but think about what the first people who saw them must have thought they were seeing.
delk
Amazing.
MazeDancer
Just remarkable photos!
stinger
Informative and entertaining copy, and glorious photos! You seem to have more stars in your sky than I do here.
How is that not-a-P pronounced?
Also, nice website.
eclare
I can’t decide which photo I like best…
Ramalama
So vivid. I love these photos and know that the live version is much more intense.
I once came across an aurora borealis, but I didn’t know it was. I’d been in a news blackout. It was summer. I had to commute regularly long distances back then from rural Quebec to Boston. Trudging to my car in the wee hours I saw spotlights that looked like they were coming FROM WITHIN THE SKY. From behind it. And it freaked me out. I didn’t know. I tried every possible explanation in my head. There’s a spotlight that welcomes people to Montreal every evening. But we lived too far for that. Or did we. Maybe a larger town was having a party. Fireworks? No one even in Montreal would party like that on a Tuesday morning at 4. Unless it was a festival? There was 20% of me that thought it was an alien event. And I don’t watch sci-fi that much. I slunk to my car, sort of convinced the world was ending. But I didn’t want to wake my partner because she is crabby in the mornings. I drove off, like I always did, skulking, unsure, and then I hit the highway. And forgot all about it until the next barbecue the following week when all the francophones were talking about the sky and the boréales, and I realized I had witnessed something amazing but was kind of terrified. I also got into trouble with my partner. “You think the world is about to possibly end and you didn’t WAKE ME?”
WaterGirl
I have teared up every morning this week that we have been lucky enough to have your photos.
Are the northern lights like snowflakes? Never the same twice?
Incredibly beautiful. Even your photo captions are little little vignettes.
You have truly touched my heart with this series.
Christopher Mathews
Thanks for all the kind comments and I’ll try to answer everyone’s questions when I get off of this glacier. :)
Iceland – it’s always an adventure.
Ramalama
@Christopher Mathews: Does anyone ever slip up and call you “Tweety?” Just wondering.
J R in WV
Camera make and model? chip size?
Lens size, aperture, focal length, etc?
Exposure lengths?
ISO setting(s)?
Tripod make and model? Any device to capture sky details over time?
I think that’s most of the technical issues I would be curious about. Bill In Glendale, did I leave anything important out?
Kristine
Wow–think you so much for posting these.
I’ve never seen northern lights. Hoping that someday….
Christopher Mathews
@Ramalama: Not yet. Although I did find when I was in DC during the ‘aughts and had to call over to the Hill, I got remarkably prompt service. ;)
@J R in WV: I generally use a Canon 6D Mk.1 body – it’s got a full-frame sensor, which lets me get full use of my lenses. My go-to lens is a Sigma Art 24mm f/1.4 prime. I’ve used other gear on occasion: sometimes you just gotta go with what you got. The photo at the Hellisheiði power station posted yesterday, for example, was taken using a Canon 90D APS sensor camera and a Sigma Art 18-35mm f/1.8 zoom.
I typically shoot at around f/2 using ISOs between 2000-3200 depending on the brightness of the aurora and other objects in the frame. Exposures can be as little as .3 seconds or as long as 8 seconds, also depending on the strength of the lights. I like to shoot shorter exposures when I can because you capture more of the “structure” of the aurora. You can usually distinguish between short exposures and long ones by looking at how many stars are in the image: a lot of stars means a longer exposure.
I’ve had a number of tripods. When I’m hiking, I use a carbon-fiber travel tripod by Peak Design. When weight isn’t an issue, I’m very fond of the Manfrotto 322RC2 ball head because it allows me to quickly recompose my shots – useful, as the aurora is constantly flowing.
@WaterGirl: Yup. It’s always different, although there are degrees of difference. A weak show is a weak show and there’s not that much difference between them. More powerful shows though can be wildly different, even from one moment to the next.
@stinger: The Þ is called “thorn” and it’s one of two letters for the “th” sound in Icelandic. You usually see it at the beginning of words, and it’s a harder “th” than it’s cousin ð, aka “eth.”
Hope I got everyone’s questions!
WaterGirl
@Christopher Mathews: Thank you again for this series!
Hopefully this won’t be your last one. :-)
sab
All the jackals are sick of hearing how much I love Dorothy Dunnett’s work, but your photos, aside from being amazing on their own, also show a bit of her amazing descriptions when her main character Nicholas went to Iceland on a brief illicit sidetrip and almost got eaten by the local volacanos. “Unicorn Hunt.” Only a few chapters in the book, but she certainly did an amazing job of describing how Icelanders lived (always on the edge of disaster, being and farming and fishing so far North, plus volcanoes.)
The amazing light, not like anywhere else in the world
ETA He was, like everyone, illicitly cod fishing.
stinger
@Christopher Mathews: Thank you!