I spent two nights in the Vistas hut and finally I got lucky during the second night: The northern lights presented a fantastic show with constantly increasing activity. The image above was made during the first “phase” of the spectacle. Later-on the whole sky lit up, also illuminating the landscape. I did not know anymore where to point the camera… Again, it was very cold which made handling the camera gear difficult. As I had been staying in the hut this time – opposed to the tent as two nights before – at least the batteries were not too cold to start with. In addition, I attached a powerbank to keep the camera shooting and was able to capture the timelapse of the aurora shown in the video below.

One of the advantages of viewing the aurora in the mountains in a remote location is the absence of light pollution which is visible in a lot of videos and images I found in the net. That night in Visttasvággi there was only the light of the aurora (and the stars).

Last month I have been to Lapland again for a 9-day trip on skis. I’m currently reviewing the images. On my 4th day I found a really nice camping spot at about 1100 m of altitude. When it got dark and the temperature dropped to about -20°C, I went outside in the hope for the northern lights to appear. Unfortunately, they did not appear that night. Instead, I captured the clear night sky without them:

That night I did not know that later on I would indeed witness a spectacular display of the aurora. Thus, I was a bit disappointed. However, after seeing the image on a larger screen I was quite happy with the result and feel that it was worth the effort.

In comparison to last year’s trip, the temperatures were a lot lower. This turned out to be a challenge for my mirrorless camera equipment. In fact, in the night when I took the image above my camera refused to work with a strange error at first. Fortunately, after warming the battery within my glove I could finally convince it to operate.

It is late in the year, the leaves are falling from the trees and soon winter is arriving. About time to work on a short video about my Lapland trip last winter. With snowshoes I explored the Swedish mountainscape in 10 days. So, let’s look forward to the cold and hopefully we’ll get some snow :-)!

Here the video, best watched in fullscreen and HD:

By the way: I finally managed to also add some of the new images to the already existing gallery.

Recently I posted a comparison of photos taken at the same locations during different seasons. Sometimes, even comparing photos of the same scene taken during different times of day may show interesting changes.

The following photos were taken during my hike in Sarek (Swedish Lapland) last year – only one night apart.