Northern Lights- an unbelievable once in a lifetime experience

Northern Lights is a phenomenon from a magical world of its own. Be it the stories that surround these dancing lights or the science that truly causes this absolutely stunning phenomenon on Earth. There’s so much to tell. Where do I begin? The experience in itself felt so dreamy, it left me wanting to see more of these stunning lights. Honestly, I still can’t believe we actually saw the Northern Lights! We witnessed the Northern lights for the first time in our lives at Kvaløya an island in Tromsø, Norway on 24-10-2022.

If the sole purpose of your visit to Norway is to see the Northern lights due to the land’s closeness to the North pole, then plan to spend more time in the North of Norway rather than the southern cities. This is why Tromsø is one of the best places to see Aurora Borealis. We spent most of our time in the Northern part of Norway and split our 18 days travel itinerary accordingly. Spending a total of 10 days in the Northern parts of Norway mainly Tromsø and the Lofoten Islands.

During our stay we managed to see lady Aurora four times. Thrice in Tromsø and once in Hamnøy, Lofoten. Definitely the intensity of the lights we saw were different each time. Out of the four times, twice was just a glimpse of the dancing lights through the gaps between the clouds.

After our trip, I couldn’t sleep at night, because once you get a glimpse of the lights you’ll know what I am saying. It’ll keep you wanting to see more of it. Remember Gollum from Lord of the rings, something like that. Except here instead of his precious ring it’s nature as a whole, Haha! Was that a bad example, may be? But one can’t help falling in love with nature once you see how beautiful nature can really be, if you have a keen eye to observe and appreciate its beauty.

What are the Northern Lights?

The colourful display of lights across the sky, visible to us only at night in the arctic is called the Northern Lights. A brief description of how they are formed is as follows. A natural phenomenon called Fusion that occurs in the Sun creates and ejects solar flares that contain highly charged particles. These solar flares called the Solar winds then travel to the Earth.

Our Earth is, protected by its magnetic field, which deflects these solar winds from entering the Earth’s atmosphere. However, the magnetic field is weakest at both the north and the south poles. That’s where the solar flares enter the earth’s atmosphere and collide with the gaseous particles present in the atmosphere. This collision makes these gaseous particles highly unstable. In the process of trying to come back to a more stable state, they let out photons which we see as light. If the solar flares collide with Nitrogen it gives out a red/pinkish colour. Collision occurred with Oxygen gives out the most observed green lights.

Our experience of seeing Aurora Borealis

It was around 6 pm on 24th Oct, 2022. We were ready for our northern lights tour. Excitement had got us ready an hour or two earlier than the scheduled time of departure. The receptionist at our stay- Tromsø Lodge and camping had helped us book our tour well in advance. We ordered a chocolate-blueberry muffin each and waited at the dining area for our guide as well as the rest of the tour members to arrive. We had booked another tour on the 27th as well, just in case we missed seeing the northern lights our first time. Nevertheless, we were lucky to see the northern lights on the very first day we went on the tour.

By 7 pm, we were in the middle of switching lens of our camera when someone walked up to meet us at our table and tapped on Unni’s shoulders. A happy face smiled at us, thrilled to take us on our first northern lights tour. It was our tour guide. His excitement definitely matched ours. We immediately stood up to shake hands with him as he introduced himself as Stefan Erlingsson. Our tour guide told us about himself while on our journey. An Icelander who’s been living in Tromsø for a few years now. He told us about having a record of 90% success in his 500 Northern Lights Chase. That’s an impressive number of times to have seen the Northern lights , isn’t it?

We got into the van and waited for the others to come. This was a tour consisting of a small group of 20 people. Since we’d gone to Norway during the off season, there were only 12 of us including our guide. One other Indian couple joined in from the place we stayed. The rest joined in as we picked them up one by one from along the way. And so we started our little expedition to see the dancing lights of the North.

Please note:

Prerequisites needed to get a glimpse of Lady Aurora.

The first thing our guide told us was about the important prerequisites needed to see the Northern Lights.

1. A cloudless starry night sky-This is why booking tours helps. They’ll keep driving until you find cloudless starry night sky into the wilderness.
2. Pitch Darkness- for which you’ll have to go as far away as possible from the city lights

3.High Solar Activity– All we can do for this to happen is hope for the best.

4. Patience-This is quite a resourceful quality that’ll help you while you wait to see the northern lights. We waited from around 8:30 pm to 12:10am. During which the temperatures had dropped from -4°C to -9°C. One important lesson I learnt is that “Nature takes its time, so be patient”. It’s totally worth it.

5.Kp index value- This is a measure linked to the disturbance in the earth’s magnetic field caused by solar winds. This is a measure that tour guides use to follow and predict the intensity of the northern lights. Usually higher the Kp-index value higher are the chances of getting to see a good display of dancing lights.

Though our tour guide had mentioned that this isn’t accurate always as nature comes with a lot of unpredictability. Surprisingly, the day we went was one such too. Kp-index index value showed 2 on the day we went to see the northern lights the first time. To be honest, we didn’t expect to see much. Yet, as you can see from the pictures, it turned out to be quite a night! Mother goddess decided to be kind to us is what I honestly think. How else do you explain what we saw on a night with such a low Kp-index value?

Types of Northern lights tours available

1.You are taken in a van into the wilderness, away from city lights. Then you wait patiently all night until the lights show up. That’s what we did on 24-10-2022. The guide usually picks the destination beforehand based on their experience, calculation on Kp value etc. Tour company we booked was called Northern Lights Tromso

2.This is a tour in which you are taken on a tour bus literally chasing the northern lights. Here, you are constantly on the go instead of staying in one place. The plan is to stop the bus when you see the dancing lights. The tour we took on the 27-10-2022 was one such tour. The tour company we booked on 27-10-2022 was called The Chasing Lights Tour. This tour is good for those who can’t tolerate the cold, but our personal fav is the first one.

Photo Gallery

Here are a few pictures of aurora borealis we witnessed in Kvaløya an island in Tromsø, Norway on 24-10-2022 . PC: Our tour guide and our photographer- Stefan Erlingsson

Capturing pictures of Aurora Borealis

Anyone who’s tried their hand at Night Photography knows that it’s difficult. You definitely need a tripod stand. Our tour guide was kind enough to lend us one as we didn’t have our own. As an alternative, you can any sturdy structure on which you can place the camera while capturing the pictures. You can only capture Northern lights in manual mode as any Auto mode would distort the picture. This was my first time trying to capture Northern lights. Here are the camera settings I used :

1. I shot at an aperture of f/1.4 and sometimes at f/2.8
2. Shutter Speed- varied from 6″ to 10″
3. ISO-adjusted between1600 to 2500

Don’t forget to focus on a distant light manually before you capture Northern lights.

Here are some pictures I managed to take during our visit.

That’s all for now. We’ll meet you in our next blog where we’ll tell you all about the amazing legends about the Northern lights.

Thank you for stopping by, Hope you enjoyed reading!
Achu & Unni
(Couple Travel Tales)