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| Northern Lights in Holmen, Jukkasjärvi |
In Search of the Northern Lights
The first night we arrived in Jukkasjärvi, we were spent. The drive northward took about 18 hours (with stops and slept at a hotel the night before), and our car had signs of breaking down -- the alarm for the coolant started blinking so we called a mechanic and fortunately received a schedule early in the morning for the next day. So after taking a quick look at the Ice Hotel, buying groceries, we had salad for dinner and tried to wait for Northern Lights, but it was too cloudy. We were also very tired. We got a notification from Aurora Forecast App around midnight but we have already fallen asleep by then, and I got to read it in the morning instead.
When I woke up and saw this notification, I started researching some more into the Northern Lights, while the rest slept.
Kiruna is usually a good place to wait for Aurora Borealis but it's still about timing. The Aurora Borealis cannot be seen by the naked eye if quite weak.
We asked the locals at Nutti Sámi Siida. The best time to visit up North is before winter around September and October or after winter, in March. We only had the chance to visit during the first week of November so it’s gotten quite cloudy because of the snowfall as well.
It helps to download the Aurora forecast apps. They have a guide to the best locations where to see Aurora Borealis in real time. Most of the time, it seems accurate. I downloaded "Aurora" and "Aurora Forecast" to further help in the search of The Northern Lights.
Aurora. Below is a screenshot of the projected best locations for seeing Aurora Borealis in real time. This app contains graphs for forecasts by the hour, cloud coverage, and solar winds. Other options include a gallery of Northern Lights sightings in different countries, the sun, and available tours from certain countries like Iceland, Norway, Canada, and the like.
Aurora Forecast. Below are screenshots of the different graphs and prognosis of sightings of The Northern Lights. Predictions, real-time solar activity, and geomagnetic activity probabilities. To be honest, some of these graphs might seem a bit more complex and confusing, but with help in defining the indexes on these graphs from reference available online, it could get a bit simpler. According to aurora-service.net, Kp is a unit of measurement for Aurora strength. When reading forecasts, 0 means no visible Aurora Borealis, and 9 as a major geomagnetic storm making The Northern Lights very visible.
The Travel to Abisko
On our way out of Nutti Sámi Siida, Infa and Alphy met other tourists who were also there for the experience of the Sámi culture. These tourists said they stayed at Abisko for 5 nights and saw The Northern Lights. Skies were clearer there, but you really have to stay up late. Best time to start seeing or searching for it is at 8 p.m. to after midnight, even until the wee hours of the morning
We went home to have lunch, the rest of the group took an afternoon nap, prepared dinner and we all soldiered on to Abisko. We left at 2050H and arrived at exactly an hour and a half later, making this entry late at night of Day 3 until the early morning of Day 4, several hours after midnight.
I stayed awake the entire time. It might be the anticipation, or I was too tired to sleep.
The plan was to stay up to midnight in Abisko, to really wait and see if we can go catch the Northern Lights. It was my turn to sleep on the way up there. Well, I tried. It was a further 125 kilometres up north from where we were staying, which was At Jukkasjärvi. It took about 1.5 hour travel time through thicker snow and colder weather at night.
The Aurora Sky Station has a LIVE camera that takes a picture of the horizon every 5 minutes. We checked it for Northern Lights activities from that night and the night before -- covers at least 42 hours of shutter history since I was also able to check for it from 2 nights before, starting at 3 a.m.
Pictures of the Northern Lights activities below were from the actual time we were there at the Aurora Sky Station through the LIVE camera, but I captured these screenshots the night after. This is why it says 2322H on the time at the top.
We parked in front of the base, but it was closed for the season. It was pitch black, and there were only two other cars parked there, probably also waiting for the Northern Lights. We tried taking a few shots, using the live camera as a guide. Armed with one tripod, and 3 different cameras, we took turns in taking photos. It had to be pitch black, no headlights switched on at all. Placing the camera on the tripod, we had to let it burn for awhile. At the image below, I used the built-in flash, and let it burn for 15 seconds as I stood there freezing, trying not to move.
The Aurora Sky Station is the base for 2-seat chair lifts that bring the passengers onto a secondary location where the view is best for the Northern Lights.There is also a restaurant on the secondary location / view deck where you can have dinner or just order beverages to keep you hydrated. They are open for about a month in winter, and a month during summer. The Aurora Sky Station base is right on top of this elevated area where we were at. The place I am standing at is almost at the edge of this area. It actually felt like the edge of a cliff, but we were not sure because it was our first time to go there, near midnight, and it was pitch black. We only had our headlights and those reflective signs along the edges to guide us. Fortunately, it had been snowing heavily as well so the ground was brighter and helped us in navigating through the dark. Once we drove further back down into the highway, it got bright again.
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| Slightly Visible Sighting of The Northern Lights in Abisko (Aurora Sky Station)) |
We stayed until around 2 a.m. and called it "a night". That was just about the amount of Aurora that we would be able to experience. The travel back to the lodge was an hour and a half without heavy traffic. We were just beyond exhausted at this point.
Lake Sovasjärvi
During the 4th day of our stay at the Arctic Circle, we toured the Ice Hotel (post about it coming up), and by night time we were about to give up that there will be no more pictures of what we traveled all the way up there for. After dinner, I started checking the apps again as well as the live camera of the Aurora Sky Station, and there was quite a bit of activity early in that evening. Too tired to travel back to Abisko, I realized that we had clear skies driving back to the lodge, and Jukkasjärvi (where the lodge is situated) is a great spot for the Northern Lights. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy, though we could see bright green lights on the edges. We then decided to drive to a nearby place instead. It is where some of the tourist guides bring guests to catch the Northern Lights if skies were clear, it is called Sovasjärvi.
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| Northern Lights Hiding at Lake Sovasjärvi in Norrbotten County: Group Picture Attempt 1 |
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| Northern Lights Hiding at Lake Sovasjärvi in Norrbotten County: Group Picture Attempt 2 |
We waited for almost an hour for the sky to clear, but not enough for us to able to capture the lights. When we could see parts of the moon in the distance, we took our chances, stood still in the dark and let the camera burn for almost 20 seconds. It was pitch black, but we were still able to experience a bit of The Northern Lights, anyway. We headed back to the lodge to start packing.
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| Northern Lights Hiding at Sovasjärvi in Norrbotten County, Sweden |
Finally Catching The Northern Lights at the Doorstep
After midnight, I passed by the kitchen window and noticed how clear the sky was because I could see the moon and the stars. I stopped in my tracks and realized that this would be the perfect time to check for any Aurora activities.
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| Caught Up with The "Shy" Northern Lights |
I went outside and started taking pictures with my camera. There was a long line (like an inverted check mark) across the horizon. It was not green, and it was almost invisible in the winter sky. After half an hour, it started to spread upwards, scattering among the stars. Another swirl seemed to come in from the left, but it was a short one. It disappeared after awhile. They all looked like white swirls across the horizon, but they were green in the camera. Even though it was difficult to see the lights, we were definitely still grateful to have been in the presence of such majestic occurrence in nature. Many have traversed these endeavors and some were not even slightly fortunate to have had a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis.
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