I attempted to visit far northern Alaska last winter, only to be repelled by temperatures that dipped to -65 F, without wind chill. The aurorae further south, though, were amazing, and compelled me to give it another try. It was significantly warmer this year -- a low of merely -40 F -- still not particularly comfortable when sleeping in a car for ten days, particularly for those of us from Southern California. The good news, however, is that I managed to avoid becoming a polar bear snack and, in the process, was able to capture some beautiful and rarely photographed landscapes along with an assortment of arctic wildlife.

Cloudy skies lit up from nearby Tromsø created an eerie look of tonight´s auroras. Coronas dancing above the light-polluted clouds made it look like if green rays of sun were shining through an orange cloud cover, almost creating a feeling of being close to a distant colorful nebula. Nikon D3, Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 ISO 800, 10 sec, around 20:30 local time.

Still getting some good activity in Tromsø. Canon 40D 5sec exposures ISO800.

These auroras did not last long, but made a bright display.

It really seems like the sun is waking up. This last weeks it has been common to see the northern lights even south into Leo. This is from one of the last trips where we had a great display for 2 hours and ended the evening in -20'C, campfire, coffee and cookies. Tech.data: Canon EOS 5D mkII, EF24mm/f1,4 mkII. 6-25sec, f1,6, ISO 400