Iceland - 2017

Next we climbed to one of the most impressive waterfalls in Iceland, Gullfoss. This massive waterfall cascades over three “steps” before spilling into a large crevice. Fed by a glacier lake, the water passing through the falls can be a dark grey depending on how much sediment gets pushed through the river.
Pictures: 1-5 Gullfoss Waterfall – note the path people are on and see how far we walked to the waterfall/ me. 6: sunsetRead more

We then went to our farmhouse lodging at Alftrod Guesthouse to have dinner prepared by Jonas and try to catch the Northern Lights. The farmhouse was sorta like a dorm: 1 living area with kitchen and entertainment sides; then through a door was 10 rooms with twin beds/bath. Someone had worn her fitbit and announced she did 17,000 steps today – WOW! Jonas made a fish stew for dinner and tonight was a great N.L. show with many different types of lights. (More explanation below)
The aurora often appears as curtains of lights, but they can also be arcs or spirals, often following lines of force in Earth’s magnetic field. Most are green in color but sometimes you’ll see a hint of pink, and strong displays might also have red, violet and white colors. The lights typically are seen in the far north. Of course, the lights have a counterpart at Earth’s south polar regions. Sometimes it’s possible to hear Aurora noise, similar to a hissing, or crackling noise, It is caused by charged particles in an inversion layer of the atmosphere formed during a cold night.
There are some different types of NL that can be seen. The most distinctive and brightest are the curtain-like auroral arcs. Each curtain consists of many parallel rays, each lined up with the local direction of the magnetic field, consistent with auroras being shaped by Earth's magnetic field. The similarity of an auroral display to curtains is often enhanced by folds within the arcs. Arcs can fragment or 'break-up' into separate, at times rapidly changing, often rayed features that may fill the whole sky. These are the 'discrete' auroras, which are at times bright enough to read a newspaper by at night and can display rapid sub-second variations in intensity. The 'diffuse' aurora, on the other hand, is a relatively featureless glow sometimes close to the limit of visibility. It can be distinguished from moonlit clouds by the fact that stars can be seen undiminished through the glow. Diffuse auroras are often composed of patches whose brightness exhibits regular or near-regular pulsations. The pulsation period can be typically many seconds, so is not always obvious. Often there black aurora i.e. narrow regions in diffuse aurora with reduced luminosity. A typical auroral display consists of these forms appearing in the above order throughout the night.

Pictures 1-6 are my photos taken with just a hand-held 10 sec. exposure (needed 25-30 and tripod)Read more