You expect Iceland to be cold. The clue is in the name. But actually it’s not as cold as you might think. Apart from this March when Iceland was experiencing record breaking low temperatures. It was worse at night.
However, night was the time to go aurora hunting and following a successful sighting of the Northern Lights with my first group on Friday night, my 3 nights off between tours offered much promise with forecasts of high activity levels and high visibility. It started out with me just going out stargazing the first night, which turned into an amazing display of Northern Lights.
The activity of the Northern Lights is based on a solar cycle which lasts approximately 11 years and in the middle of this is the solar maximum where you tend to see the aurora more often and the activity is stronger. As we head towards that solar maximum in approximately 2 years’ time, now is a good time to see the Northern Lights if the conditions are right.
I’d recently seen the Northern Lights in Norway, now it looked like I would see them in Iceland once again too.
The group went home on Monday and I ventured out with my Icelandic friend on Monday night to Þingvellir. We were going stargazing as the sky was amazingly clear, especially out near the National Park. I saw Venus and Jupiter and could pick out the Plough and Orion, but I did struggle with other constellations, the sky was just so full of stars and I’m no astronomer. But the sky was full of stars and not being able to identify the constellations didn’t stop me appreciating the beauty.
The Northern Lights hadn’t really come out by midnight, but we decided to give it another 10 minutes. It was a good call. Within that 10 minutes we were rewarded with some Northern Lights streaking across the sky. My phone camera picked up the green colour, the problem was it was perishing outside tonight! I couldn’t take photos with bulky gloves on, but as the Northern Lights were quite faint at this point, I needed 8 seconds exposure to pick them up in photos. I could only manage to take 2 photos before my hands turned into blocks of ice and I had to put my gloves back on before my fingers fell off! Then I ran and sheltered in the car for a while.
However, as the activity built up and got stronger, I only needed 4 second exposure and now I could even pick up red coloured Northern Lights in the camera, which is a pretty rare sight. It was very special to pick up that colour and I’d certainly never seen it before.
I read an article that red Northern Lights had been more visible this year in February and more were to come. In an ideal world, an even more vibrant red colour like I’ve seen in photos would have been great, but realistically those images had probably been photoshopped and as it was, I was thrilled that I had seen some red. It had been a real treat. Tonight had been almost perfect.
If Monday night was almost perfect, Tuesday night was nothing short of spectacular when the aurora activity went through the roof. Tonight we only needed to drive out just past Elf Rock in Hafnarfjörður and face the open Atlantic because the activity was so strong even the distant city lights couldn’t diminish the display.
Everywhere you looked was the Aurora Borealis, completely surrounding us and above us. If the Northern Lights faded in one part of the sky they would build up in another, there wasn’t one moment when something wasn’t going on somewhere in the atmosphere.
Tonight the Aurora was strong enough to be able to pick up the green colour with the naked eye, although it came out much brighter in the photos. The Northern Lights swirled, they danced, they lit up the sky, putting on a show for a couple of hours.
While it was still cold tonight, the high activity meant that long exposure didn’t work in photos, the stronger the lights, the shorter the exposure time. Only having 2 second exposure meant I could get a lot more photos before my hands turned into ice cubes. Consequently I got 300 photos, although at least two thirds of them could be immediately discarded and then I just had to look at the others and decide which were the best.
On Wednesday night the Aurora Borealis came out to play again, this time quite early. We headed into a wooded area tonight to watch them, even my Icelandic friend didn’t know where we were going, we just followed the light, and once again we were surrounded by the Northern lights in every part of the sky and they were dancing.
In fact, tonight they were dancing a lot more than the previous night, even though the colours weren’t as strong. It was possible to pick up a hint of other colours, pinks and reds again.
I have seen purple Northern Lights in Greenland when I went snowmobiling in the wilderness at night, but never managed to capture them on camera, so that’s my next task. You can sometimes pick up blue as well. I want all possible colours in my Northern Lights photos.
All in all, the Aurora Borealis had been nothing short of spectacular for 3 nights in a row. I had been very lucky. Even my Icelandic friend said they weren’t often as strong as that.
The new group was arriving tomorrow. I hoped they would be able to see such a magnificent display. Unfortunately, Aurora had obviously got tired with all that dancing she had been doing for the last 3 nights and now decided it was time to have a rest. On Friday night there was a faint display, on Saturday night, we saw absolutely nothing. Aurora had gone to sleep for a while.
I considered myself very fortunate to have seen such magnificent Northern Lights for 3 nights in a row and I hope that I will manage to see more amazing displays next winter as we head closer to the solar maximum.
I travelled to Iceland in March 2023.
I flew to Iceland with Easyjet who have daily flights from Manchester to Keflavik in the winter.
Luckily I have an Icelandic friend with a car, who generously drove me out to the best locations within an hour of Reykjavik to star gaze and view the aurora. Otherwise any hotel in the city can make you a reservation on one of the many Northern Lights tours that take place every night (weather permitting) during the winter months.
Read about my day exploring Snæfellsnes
A Day on Snæfellsnes Peninsula
Check out my post about viewing the Northern Lights on my snowmobile outing in Greenland.
Viewing the Northern Lights by Snowmobile
