If I Were Going...: Aurora Borealis

One of the things we came for

I have been regaling you with the incredible sights we saw on our daily excursions in Greenland without mentioning anything about what we were seeing when not out on our Zodiacs or hiking around rocky hills.

This tour was billed as Adventures in Northeast Greenland: Glaciers, Fjords and the Northern Lights. And, yet, I have not mentioned northern lights.

We had them!

We had them almost EVERY NIGHT!!

EVERY NIGHT!!! Almost!

The first night, the announcement came over the PA system with maximum excitement.

We cruised at night and the crew watched for aurora; Photo: Scotty Sinton

Everyone rushed to the deck to marvel at the green (and occasionally red) streaks on the horizon.

A small crowd of eager photographers; Photo: Scotty Sinton

We took photos.

We were in awe

The next night was equally enthusiastic.

Another chance for photos

Then, the announcements started with "I hate to tell you this, but ...."

Again????

I mean we were up early every morning. We were going out on two excursions a day. We were hiking. Chargers were charging. Kayakers were kayaking. We were tired. And, now we were staying up half the night to watch this!

The final night of aurora, I didn't even go out on deck to take photos.

That's why you have balconies!

And, the final night in Greenland, we didn't have any to see. Who would think that that would ever be a relief?

What we saw was spectacular and a little different every night.

We had low columns on the horizon

We had diffused clouds of color

We had big swirls in the sky

We had daggers descending from the heavens to the water

We had multi-color curtains

And we had arcs over our heads from one side of the ship to the other

I have seen aurora borealis (the scientific name for northern lights) before and I have blogged about it before. So, I'll send you here to read the scientific stuff.

It was good!

Although I do have experience with aurora, this trip provided some new sights and some new challenges.

This was the first time I had photographed aurora over water, so adding reflections was a plus.

I love the green on the water

This is also the first time there had been icebergs in the foreground.

Beautiful; Photos: Scotty Sinton

I was less successful taking photos of the icebergs than Scotty, the ship's photographer, because the exposure levels were so significantly different between the bright sky and the dark fjord. I figured he had more experience doing this.

My attempt (the spotlight was from the ship)

The challenges were ... well ... challenging.

First, the boat was moving and aurora requires longer than normal exposures.

Many of my shots were a bit blurrier than I like -- especially the stars

Second, I had a brand-new camera that I was (and am still) learning to use. So, in the dark, I had issues finding the right buttons and quickly changing the settings.

But, I still managed ...

The first and second led to the third -- a near disaster. I momentarily took my hands off my tripod and to my horror it -- with my BRAND-NEW camera -- fell over. To my increased horror, I heard glass breaking. It was, of course, too dark to assess damage on deck, so I hurried back to my cabin.

It appears that my camera survived -- at least nothing has gone wrong yet. What broke was a clear glass protective filter on my f2.8 20mm lens. Plus, the edge of the lens was dented so badly that I couldn't remove the filter rim. So, I had to carefully extract any remaining glass to protect the lens surface.

Oof!!!

When I got home, I found that the lens is too old to be repaired by Canon. I did get it looked at and the filter rim removed, but the dent is (while slightly straightened) too severe to put another filter on.

It could have been worse, but it rattled me so much, it was hard to relax when shooting aurora after that. I am used to solid ground, not a gently swaying ship.

But, back to the good stuff: the aurora was truly good stuff! Quark delivered on the promise in the name of the tour. And, after our rainy week in Iceland, that was surprise.

A good surprise

Oh, and a word about the Arctic. You may be wondering why we had so much dark -- or so much sunny weather so far north. Our trip was in September. In fact, we were there during the equinox, meaning we had about as much dark as light.

We had sunsets!

Had it been a mid-summer trip, Quark would have had to drop the Northern Lights part because, since we were above the Arctic Circle, the sun would not have set. At all. Thus, no aurora borealis. That's the whole Midnight Sun thing.

We had legit Midnight Sun in Svalbard in 2019

Had the trip been mid-winter, we would have had no sun. At all.

But, that far north, we would have also has iced-in fjords, sub-zero temperatures and treacherous sailing conditions. They don't do that. Instead, they take their ship south to Antarctica and enjoy its summer season, leaving Greenland for spring through fall ...