Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Trip back to Rolde and Assen

We took a few days of Easter to revisit Rolde and Assen, 2 hours drive away from Amsterdam Sciphol Airport. This is our first trip back since residing in Norway ... though we've been meaning to do so every year.














Both children agreed that the visit was too short! There wasn't enough time to soak in the early days of living their childhood an idyllic little place like Rolde. We'll definitely try to get back there again.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Aurora, 21st March in the backyard

This event was recorded between 2:30-3:30am Saturday morning of 21st March 2015 from a location just a few minutes walk from our house, Lundneset on the island of Hundvag. A similar event took place in October last year. The feeling is that this is not a bad place for aurora during the height of solar activity.

The island of amoy is seen in the images, it's populated, the light pollution from the residential area and industries are obviously not desirable however it is reasonably under control as seen in these images.





Interesting as well for this site is the visibility of the Milky Way, by about 4am Milky Way was seen rising over the town of Tau (another source of light pollution in the area. Even with the extensive light pollution, the backdrop of Tau with mountains and cliffs make it very pictorially pleasing.



A Youtube timelapse of the 21st March Aurora Event.


Friday, March 20, 2015

Solar Eclipse 20th March 2015

I missed it! The good clear weather forecasted a few days earlier turned out to be duds ... we in Stavanger were completely clouded over, I think it even rained on the day of the much awaited total eclipse of the sun.

Earlier plans to travel north to capture the event were cancelled because of the "fabulous" eclipse weather forecasted. It's kind of depressing to think the next time this is taking place is another 14 years away.

These images of the sun on sunny almost spring days were taken during the few days leading to the eclipse Friday, practice shots so to say for an event that was completely clouded over in the end!






Images were made using EOS100D+EF40/2.8+Leica APO 77 Telescope with a green, red filters as well as a dedicated sun filter for good measure. Warning: Looking directly at the sun with a telescope can blind you with some kind of safety measures!

Thursday, March 19, 2015

March, aurora month 2015

A major solar event took place over the weekend and the following Tuesday 17th Mar, major aurora outbreaks were witnessed as far south as Germany and the Netherlands. Of the maximum 9 of the index, the weekend's solar ejections initiated aurora kpi index of 8!

Of course I was sleeping when these wondrous events too place. Having given up of viewing anything with the forecasted clouding over of Stavanger, I decided to stay indoors and event slept earlier than usual. Alerts, smses, and FB messages went ignored confident that no aurora would be visible that night.

Of course I was wrong, and completely lucked out on probably what was the biggest event yet for the year. Friends were posting awesome auroras taken with iphones from their balcony and taken out on their respective porches.

What follows were desperate attempt to chase the aurora albeit a few days too late ...









These images were taken amidst heavily moisture laden atmosphere on the coast south of Sele on the 19th March, a few days after the major outbreak. With extreme light pollution, spotting auroras with naked eyes is almost impossible. These were coaxed out of RAW files during post-processing.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Almost full moon.


The almost full moon; the moon and Jupiter 04th Mar 2015.