VideoFromSpace YouTube Channel video: 3 Years of Amazing Auroras Captured on Video by Chad Blakley at Abisko National Park, Sweden. Uploaded June 12, 2012.
http://youtu.be/DaWAgch0GFM
Sadly, Iceland and the Aurora Borealis have been subtracted from my trip itinerary; Putting the awe back in awesome: Auroras over Sweden make you feel very insignificant in the bigger scheme of things, so you need to positively influence the things that you CAN!; @STFAbiskoOr, jag tänker inte Island som planerat.
Some of you already know this from emails or phone calls of mine the past few weeks, but for others of you, this will be the first you hear of it: I'm not going to be going to Iceland in January as originally planned.
My big plans to stop there for a few days on the way back from Sweden, and to hop on a sweet tour bus and take a long-but-comfortable drive a few hours north of Reykjavik to see the Northern Lights/Aurora Borealis are officially kaput.
It's mostly because in October, I booked non-refundable airline tickets on SAS and had to pay in advance for the airfare, hotel and the B&B in Stockholm that I'm staying at to get the specific travel dates I wanted, ostensibly, in order to get back in time to watch the public Presidential Inaugural on Monday the 21st.
The non-Romney inaugural as it turns out
This required that I make some changes to my original itinerary, as discussed here on the blog back on July 18, 2012, titled, Want to see a sneak peek of my future? Prescient geniuses with a camera at BeepShow have already filmed part of my future -away from the heat & humidity of Miami- and it includes Iceland and the Northern Lights. But sadly, I'll end up missing Sigur Rós at Iceland Airwaves; #Iceland, #BeepShow, #Icelandair
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/want-to-see-sneak-peek-of-my-future.html
As previously seen on that post:
London to Iceland in Ten Minutes from Beep Show on Vimeo.
Beep Show video: London to Iceland in Ten Minutes. 2012.
Complete information about video is here: http://vimeo.com/45121903
Still, it's not like you can't see the Aurora Borealis from Sweden, you just have to be smart, resourceful AND patient... like the people who captured the wonderful videos above and below.
For me to see it in two weeks, I'll obviously have to leave greater Stockholm so I can be free of the city's light pollution.
On the other hand, while I'm there, there will be a whole lot LESS hours of light -daylight- for me than what I'm used to, as sunrise there will be sometime after 8:30 a.m. and sundown will be around 3:30 p.m.
Yes, you read that correctly, sundown at 3:30 p.m.
Just so you know, since I'm guessing that most of you reading this have never heard of it, the city of Abisko, located in Norrbotten, the northernmost county in Sweden, up near the Norwegian border and the Lappland area of Finland, is considered one of the best places on the planet to see the aurora borealis phenomena.
That's largely because the mountains around there catch most of the precipitation in winter and prevent it from interfering with the night time views.
That explains why so many of the videos on this post and uploaded to YouTube were recorded there.
It's a target-rich environment.
View Larger Map
According to this article in the newspaper up in distant Norrbotten, NSD, i.e. the Norrländska Socialdemokraten, http://www.nsd.se/nyheter/ bookings to the Abisko Turiststation STF, a.k.a. STF Abisko, increased by 130% over last year, a banner year.
http://www.nsd.se/nyheter/artikel.aspx?ArticleID=7366284
According to this article, what's especially noticeable now are the number of Northern Lights tourists coming from Japan and Great Britain, which sort of stands to reason given both how Internet-savvy those countries are, and how famous their citizens are are for traveling and exploring.
For the Japanese, it's about a nine-hour plane ride from Tokyo, but for the Brits, it's much less daunting to get to the nearest airport, Kiruna, via stops in Oslo or Stockholm Arlanda.
Official STF Abisko website:
http://www.svenskaturistforeningen.se/sv/upptack/Omraden/Lappland/Fjallstationer/STF-Abisko-Turiststation/
Meanwhile, over at Porjus, the #1 place to see the aurora according to many informed sources, there's a LIVE streaming camera you might want to check out: http://uk.jokkmokk.jp/detail_nr3.shtml
http://www.porjus.eu/
VideoFromSpace YouTube Channel video:Chad Blakley's latest video of an ionized oxygen aurora over Abisko National Park, Sweden. Uploaded December 19, 2012
http://youtu.be/7yN9lcJIeLA
VideoFromSpace YouTube Channel video: Awe-Inspiring Northern Lights Shine Over Sweden, December 2012. Shot from Abisko National Park, Sweden. Uploaded December 13, 2012. http://youtu.be/N79ATuvHi1Y
See more from Chad Blakley at http://www.lightsoverlapland.com and http://digitaljournal.com/article/327325
tonakai82 YouTube Channel video: Aurora Borealis from Abisko Sky Station in northern Sweden 2012. Uploaded December 15, 2012. http://youtu.be/kc9Ds3b1IKk
More photos at: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/63402501@N07/sets/72157632201759165/
GregTechnology YouTube Channel video: Aurora in Abisko -The northern lights blaze in Arctic Sweden. Uploaded December 13, 2012. http://youtu.be/E4BbfrF5PxE
skbailey YouTube Channel video: Doggylights. Uploaded December 6, 2012.
http://youtu.be/9b3wgmu_9Ko
tenorsominutesagos YouTube Channel video: A Day and Night at the Aurora Sky Station, Abisko, Sweden. Uploaded December 25, 2011.
http://youtu.be/NkAJBmg3E1Y
I'm concluding today's post with a non-aurora video of snow-heavy Abisko from two days ago, the day before Christmas, with a temperature of about negative 25 Fahrenheit...
Joachim Floberg YouTube Channel video: Abisko Julen 2012. Uploaded December 24, 2012. http://youtu.be/lIuwAbbZHV0
Trivia: Sweden has a base compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan that's officially called "Northern Lights."
-----
See more at...
English aurora photographer Patricia Covern, now living in Porjus:
http://www.arctic-color.com/
www.auroraskystation.com
http://www.visitreykjavik.is/
http://www.youtube.com/user/VideoFromSpace
