Aurora season coming to an end

The dark skies of the arctic winter are gone, we are now moving fast into a long period of 24/7 daylight. This means that although the aurora still dances above, we can’t see it.

There will only be one single star visible in the arctic night sky all spring and summer, our sun. For us here in Kiruna the sun will stay above the horizon from late May until mid July. For a month or so before and after the midnight sun period, the sun does set but it stays too close to the horizon for us to get any darkness at night.

The midnight sun does make for some beautiful scenery though. The sun rolls over the horizon through the night before rising higher in the morning. This gives us that beautiful soft light for hours. Here it is shining over the mountain range as seen from the hill Luossavaara here in Kiruna.

At the end of August we will finally be able to see a starry sky again! And those first nights of proper darkness are usually spectacular.

Autumn is generally a great time for aurora hunting. September/October come with pitch black night skies full of stars and dancing lights. This is the perfect time to capture the aurora over open water, before everything freezes over.

That’s it for this Sunday morning!

I will try to update this blog every now and then with new photos and some info on how I captured them. I’ll also share some processing tips and maybe my favorite locations for aurora hunting up here around Kiruna.

Have an amazing day!