Northern Lights Aurora Borealis, Norway

 In Dec 2024 I did a Northern Lights cruise to Norway, hoping to see the aurora. The Aurora Borealis has been particularly good this year throughout autumn and winter, and were even seen as far south as the south coast of England. They had also been seen in SE London.

So I had high hopes we would see them on the cruise. Our Fred Olsen ship was named Borealis, which means “northern”. We left on Dec 7 during Storm Darragh and then had cloudy skies and rough seas for the next few days. It was only on 13th Dec that we had our first sighting of the northern lights. We were at Tromso, which is above the Arctic Circle. The lights weren't very strong and almost impossible to see with the naked eye, but are visible through a camera lens. These photos were all taken with my phone. The sky looks brighter than it actually was and stars are visible on the photos. I haven't bothered to "photoshop" the photos.

Part of the plough constellation -

On the 14th evening we had another weak display, we were at Alta.

The 3rd and last time we saw them was on the 16th, after leaving Sortland, which is at 68° N. This time the display was visible to the naked eye (but still not the all singing all dancing display you see in magazines and documentaries!). The lights were visible for a few hours. The sea was rough and we were expecting 5.5 m waves so it was hard to keep the camera still. That night we had to go at full speed to get ahead of the low pressure = bad weather. 

The lights had a jagged tooth effect -

The circumpolar moon with clouds -

See my blogs on :

Circumpolar moon

Polar stratospheric clouds

Finland Northern Lights 2017