Initially while waiting for the aurora to flare up, I started a star trail shot w the North Star, "Polaris" over a birch tree. The North Star is used for navigation because it stays in the same spot, while the rest of the "heavens", spin around as the earth rotates. The aurora started low on the horizon and as they increased in strength I gave up on star trails and photographed the aurora. There were several flare ups from midnight til I called it a night at 3 am.

As the aurora season is coming to an end for us in the northern arctic regions, we were treated to a few rare auroral forms tonight. First early in the evening a thin proton arc (hydrogen arc) formed overhead. The proton arc grew diffuse after ten minutes and stayed visible for about an hour. A few hours after midnight Bz turned south again but instead of a substorm, we only saw the auroral oval grow larger and brighter until it split up in multiple parallel bands. A nice Iridium flare was visible next to the oval. And as the first signs of twilight showed, thin blue rays from sunlit nitrogen aurora appeared over the horizon. I wonder how high they reach, perhaps a thousand kilometers or more?

Photo details: Nikon D1H at 1600ISO, 14mm lens, f/2.8, exposures from 8 to 20 seconds.

A very brief display that took me completely by surprise. The display was almost washed out by a nearly full moon.

Photo details: Nikon D200, ASA 400, 8 seconds

Nice green auroras were visible to the north between clouds and the Moon illuminated mountainside. These pictures were taken at CET 23.51 March 5 - 00.08 am March 6, 2007.

Photo details: Canon Digital Rebel XT, 18 - 55 mm lens, RC-5 and tripod. ISO: 800. EXP 14 - 21 sec

A short lived display at 2:30am with bright moonlight over southcentral Alaska.

These pictures were taken in the arctic toundra. The moon wasn't there at that time and the auroras were very strong.

Photo details: Canon EOS 30D, 15-30s exposure, ISO 800-1600, 4.0

Just as we were having dinner, another unexpected aurora spectacle unfolded itself and for twenty minutes there were northern lights all over the sky. The moon hadn't risen yet so it was really dark and we had flaming aurora and ice as desert.

Quite unexpected the solar wind strengthened and we had a few midnight hours of beautiful aurora. Despite the full moon and the bitter cold (-25 Celcius), we stayed quite long out on the frozen river and enjoyed the beautiful colors and constantly changing shape of the northern lights.

Photo details: Nikon D1H, 1600ISO, 6s exposures with a 14mm/2.8 lens.