AURORA SWIRLS at DIMMUBORGIR

We spent the days around the turn of the year in Iceland and we were gifted with a nice northern lights show at Kirkjufell on Christmas Eve. But on most other nights the overcast skies and the severe gales were a bit of a challenge. The sun goes through an 11-year cycle and currently it is heading towards its peak of activity. The solar circle #25 is looking really promising and outperforming the previous forecasts as you can see on this chart. That's why Steffen and I decided to give it a try and to return to Iceland a.s.a.p. to enjoy more aurora displays. And we did not regret it! Just about half an hour after we left Berlin on March 10, some strong green lights started dancing right next to the airplane's wing - a wonderful "welcome show" that kept us entertained throughout the flight!

Due to the inclement weather we were forced to spend most of the time in the northeast, and just as on our New Year's trip, we missed some of our favorite aurora spots (the glacier lagoons and the Diamond Beach in the southeast). But luckily, there are quite a lof of fabulous places to do night photography around Lake Myvatn (-> Best Places for Northern Lights Photography in Iceland). So we enjoyed some colorful lights at Godafoss, at the coast near Husavík, among snow-capped mountains in the middle of nowhere and - as you can see in this month's image - also at Dimmuborgir. An incredible spooky place to be at night! ;-)

With the fresh snow and the waxing gibbous moon, all those pitch-black lava towers and natural arches provided an incredibly scenic foreground. But Dimmuborgir translates to "dark cities" and this place on the east side of Lake Myvatn is pretty popular among Icelandic elves, trolls and other hidden beings. So I guess that when we took this image on March 14 during the "witching hour" right after midnight, we were probably not the only ones out there...

Please stay tuned, more northern lights images from both winter trips (and all the missing "images of the months") will be coming up soon.

Image data: 10s at f/5, ISO 1000; RF14-35mm F4 L IS USM at 26 mm, Canon EOS R5 (yes, we have new camera! ;-) ...)