Northern Lights

We signed up for a tour to see the Northern Lights. We chose Gray Line tours. They will pick you up at your hotel but if you're staying in the center of Reykjavik, they are not allowed to stop to pick you up so there are designated bus stops throughout town where they can pick you up. The closest stop to us was Stop #3, just a 2 block walk from our apartment.

The night we signed up for the tour, the prediction for Northern Lights was minimal but they were still optimistic. We drove to Pingvellir National Park, a 40 minute drive outside Reykjavik. It was freezing that night and the sky was relatively clear but there was no Northern Lights activity. There was no place to sit so standing for 2 hours was tough. There were picnic tables nearby and if we had brought some plastic sheets as well as towels, we could have sat on the frozen benches. After 2 hours, we gave up and drove back into town.

If you don't get to see the lights, they will take you out again for free. We chose to go again the next night. The prediction was a little better--it was a 3 instead of 1.  http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/

We drove to the same park and when we arrived, we could already see the green streaks. It wasn't as brilliant as what we saw from the plane but it was better than nothing.

Pretty soon, there were violet, blue and yellow lights as well. It was pretty good and everyone was oohing and aahing. I thought that the dancing lights were time lapse photography but soon enough, the lights started to dance. It was an amazing display and made the whole trip worthwhile.

My sister had an iPhone X and was able to take these pictures on the phone. She found out later that there is an app to take Northern Lights pictures but she didn't know about this earlier.

I did bring a tripod and a Panasonic Lumix point and shoot camera. It was hard to take pictures with the tripod because it was so windy that the tripod kept tipping over.

2018 01 23 & 24