Like many people, I have for a long time harboured a dream to see the northern lights “properly”.  For me, this dream was kindled by a kindly man called Ron Livesey, who coordinated aurora observations for the British Astronomical Association.  In my early teens, after my parents moved to the north east of England, I would exchange letters with him about how to see the northern lights and noctilucent clouds; at the time I had no joy with the former, but I had some success with the latter, even when they weren’t such a well observed phenomenon.

In late 2021, I decided I needed to do something about the repeated “I’d love to see them properly one day” response I’d give when people asked if I’d ever seen the lights.  Having got into landscape astrophotography only a year before, it seemed logical that I’d plan a trip to capture images of the aurora as well as see them with the naked eye.  Research of locations had me examine Alaska (too far), Iceland (too high a risk of cloud) and the far north of Norway (possibly just right).  I settled on Senja island, off the north west coast of Norway, within the Arctic Circle and fairly accessible from the UK.  

A week before my trip, the whole affair was thrown into some jeopardy when my best mate and travel partner fell ill. We decided to leave it to the last minute to see how he was, and on the day before our flights, he called to properly pull out as his whole family had now succumbed as well.  I started to readjust to the idea of going solo, but it was likely some of the more extreme mountain-top shooting locations were now off-limits - I’m a competent hiker, but it wouldn’t be fair on my family to head into unfamiliar wilderness alone at night!

But then in a flash of inspiration my wife Esther suggested she might be able to come instead.  I looked blankly at her, failing completely to comprehend why she’d want to tag along on an essentially nocturnal “holiday”, with only a peripheral interest in the night sky, no suitable clothing and only very basic accommodation booked. And besides, with two school-age kids I just didn’t see logistically how it would work. An hour later, she’d convinced her parents to drive over from the other side of the country that same day and look after the kids for the week (for which I’ll be forever grateful), we’d navigated the needlessly complex process of switching passenger names, and we were looking forward to a completely unexpected trip together. 

So after a sleepless-through-excitement night, we woke early to head to Heathrow and took our two flights to Tromso.  Arriving just as dusk was falling, we picked up our hire car, remortgaged to do a sparse-but-adequate supermarket shop, and started the 3 hour drive to Senja island.

About 20 minutes before we arrived, once it was properly dark and coinciding with delirium, we began to notice what seemed like long, moonlit streaks of cloud in the sky, initially barely perceptible but then very clearly.  Trying to keep my eyes on the road, we could see the streaks were forming wavy ribbons in places.  Pressing on to the cabin we’d booked, which, it turned out, was very tucked away down a dirt track and not easily found at night, the final few minutes of the drive were pregnant with the expectation of what we’d see once we stepped out of the car.

Ribbons and curtains of a strong milky light - much more obvious than the Milky Way from a dark location - seemed to wave subtley as if on a gentle breeze. We threw the bags out of the car and into the cabin, quickly made the beds and then in an instant we were outside on the wooden terrace outside the cabin.  As our eyes adjusted and we looked up, a swirl of activity was taking place right overhead and, within seconds, we saw our first auroral corona - an incredible introduction to visual auroral observing!  My wife’s description of the corona was very apt: “like a ballerina’s tutu” - the intricate patterns morphed in seconds into twists and curls and spirals, before dissipating as ribbons of activity broke out elsewhere. 

This image was my first from the trip.  It’s taken from the side of the fjord outside our cabin; when I saw the colours on the back of the camera, the whole trip had already been worthwhile.  After capturing it, I left the camera timelapsing away, discovering after a couple of hours that fjords are tidal, leading to wet feet on my first night as I returned to recover the camera gear!