Northern Lights

We finally got out last night (well actually really early this morning) so see the northern lights - and they didn't dissapoint! I was able to get some pictures, and they turned out, for the most part, far better than I had expected. In order to get these shots though, I had to leave the shutter open for a whole 15 seconds (good thing i got a tripod!), and they've all been brightened afterwards too.

We were out there at around 1:30-2:00 am, and in a couple of the pictures it is possible to see how light it remains, even this early in the year, all night long. Even though the sun sets, it stays fairly close to the horizon, and during the night it is possible to track its progress (due to the dawn-ish glow that remains all night) from the point where it set, to the point where it rises again in the morning. In the last picture you can see the unusally light night sky, the stars, and the northern lights, and this was really how the night was, you could look in one direction and see the pink glow from the sun, and in the other were the northern lights! How fantastic!!

I'm sorry for the horizon in these pictures, it was incredibly difficult to see how straight the camera was!