The icy sky at night...

December 21, 2021 10:45 AM

THE 2021 Northern Lights photographer of the year. "Buckle up because this trip is going to take you from the remote boreal forests of the Arctic to the far landscapes of the Southern Hemisphere, passing by spectacular frozen forests, volcanoes, mountains, and beaches along the way…always with the Northern [or Southern - ed.] Lights dancing in the sky."
posted by Lyme Drop (7 comments total)

These are lovely. Nice find.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:47 AM on December 21, 2021

Oh, these are gorgeous.

I especially love "Polar-Snow Monsters," what a fun shot Sergey Korolev managed.
posted by the primroses were over at 11:52 AM on December 21, 2021

Very, very pretty. But I hate the titles.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:54 AM on December 21, 2021

I’ve been getting into watercolour lately, specifically northern lights and galaxies. Loads of new inspiration here, this is great!
posted by iamkimiam at 1:08 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

Beautiful! I've been considering a northern lights viewing trip in the next couple of years (assuming I can travel again eventually) - one of those things I've always wanted to see in person.
posted by photo guy at 3:54 PM on December 21, 2021

Makes me miss when interfacelift.com was frequently updated.

Thanks for sharing
posted by JoeXIII007 at 3:54 PM on December 21, 2021

Despite still being in the early, rather quiet part of the current solar cycle, we had a decent geomagnetic storm near the beginning of November following a series of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). A lot of these photos were taken during that storm on the night of November 3rd-4th. Generally speaking, the stronger the storm, the further away from the poles the aurora can be visible.

North America is lucky because the north geomagnetic pole (not to be confused with the north magnetic pole) is sort of the focal point for the northern lights and it happens to be located on Ellesmere Island in Canada — several hundred miles south of the geographic north pole. This means aurora can be visible further south in North America than they might be in Europe or Asia. And because the south geomagnetic pole is similarly offset (in the other direction), folks in New Zealand might have a slightly better shot at seeing the aurora than people at similar latitudes in Chile and Argentina.

SpaceWeatherLive is a great source of info for solar activity and aurora forecasts (they have an app too). Also check out Aurorasaurus.org for a real time map of tweets from people around the world reporting on their aurora sightings.
posted by theory at 8:48 PM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]