magic at night

We are currently in Tromsø, Norway, for the turn of the calendar year. The sun does not rise but at night one can see a special light show: Northern Lights.



This image was taken with 15sec exposure (no post-processing); but it looks different from what the human eye sees - a fainter picture but with more structure which actually moves and changes.
In order to see it we had to drive away from city lights and in order to get to clear enough sky we actually had to drive to Finland, which took about 2 1/2 hours. The temperature dropped from -2C in Tromsø to about -26C inland and I find this steep decline quite amazing.


added later: I wish everybody a Happy New Year and good luck in 2015 - we may need it.