Sam Hooke

Aurora Borealis

During our stay in Iceland, in a rural area 20 minutes north of Selfoss, we were fortunate enough to see the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) two nights in a row. The skies were relatively clear, and there was a solar storm with a Kp-index of between 6 to 8 out of 9. These are some of my favourite photos:

Time-lapse video looking straight up at stars with a green and purple aurora passing overhead.
This time-lapse shows 7 minutes of aurora activity in 6 seconds, so is 70x faster than real life. It consists of 60 individual photos taken 7 seconds apart. The camera remained stationary, but enough time passes that you can see the stars move overhead.
Photo of green aurora over cabin.
Photo of green aurora over mountains.
Photo looking straight up at stars with the aurora as a faint diagonal white line.
Photo looking straight up at stars with the aurora as a bright diagonal white line.
Photo of green aurora over mountains.
Photo looking straight up at bright white aurora.
Photo looking straight up at bright green and red aurora.
Photo of green 'S' shaped aurora over mountains.
Photo of bright green and red aurora over lights.
Photo of faint green and red aurora over lights.
Photo of faint green and red aurora over lights.
Photo of faint green and red aurora over lights.
Photo of green aurora over mountains.

The photos were taken by shooting manually, with the following settings:

  • ISO 1600 or 3200
  • Aperture f/3.5
  • Exposure between 4 and 15 seconds
  • Manually adjusted focus so that the lights in the distance were clear