Incredible video of Aurora Borealis

Norwegian landscape photographer Terje Sorgjerd spent one week around Kirkenes and the Norway-Russia border, in -25 Celsius temperature, to make this magnificent time-lapse video of the Aurora Borealis.

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Anonymous

Let me be the first to say that the time-lapse effect was distinctly off-putting. Sorry. The footage would have been awesome without the hectic accelerated effects. At one quarter of the speed it might have come across as serene and majestic. This reminded me of the subway scenes in Koyaanisqatisi.
manicbassman

the sound track is a serious distraction.. especially cheesy rubbish like that was. This needed absolutely NO sountrack at all… just gentle ambient wind noise.
- zoe
  
  i agree, the footage too beautiful to ad anything to, the music is way to much, Russel Crowe is distracting my view…
davejenk1ns

PaulR – It sounds to me like the theme from Gladiator (Russel Crow version)
- Anonymous
  
  “now we are free” from that soundtrack
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHAvjaHtlMA
- PaulR
  
  No, I meant I’m waiting for the MP3 files of the Aurora Borealis.
  
  /Don’t make me explain it…
Dave

can anybody tell me whats happening with the stars between 1:10 and 1:17 ?? its some strange movement. upper third, in the middle of the screen.
Anonymous

I wonder how he did the tracking timelapse? Maybe the camera was on a little dolly or something?
Orkney Mutant

So, if it’s a timelapse how come there are shooting stars? I mean how slow would those meteorites be moving originally?
- netsharc
  
  They could be planes or satellites and not meteors (technically meteorites are meteors which you find on the ground).
  
  To the question of how it looks real time, here’s a video of the aurora in real time. It still looks awe-inspring.
  
  As Liz Lemon says, I want to go to there!
  - Orkney Mutant
    
    Cheers, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I always get those two mixed up.
unit_1421

Enough with the fucking time lapse crap. It’s MUCH more impressive when you see it in real time!!!!
Anonymous

Hello, sorry for my english…
This time lapse it’s very beautiful…
I love your work and sensibility.

Thanks for this vidÃ©o.
xephorus

Orkney – The reason you see the shooting stars or satellites or planes (whatever) is that cameras usually require a longer exposure for each shot at night. While a video might be 24-60 frames per second, this could have been 1 frame per second or even less. Thats what would give the streaky look to it.
RyonRyon

my 3 yr old: “a rolly-poly Alice”
Anonymous

I’m confused — all I saw was a slide show. No video at all!
Anonymous

AMAZING video. Just loved it..
Maybe, just maybe, the audio track could’ve been better.
But the video gets 11 out of 10! :)
sindbad

Absolutely stunning. I hope to catch these in person some day, but for now I will have to settle on breathtaking HD video.

Interesting choice of music (I believe it was the track used in the movie GLADIATOR). I preferred to listen to it with this playing: http://t.co/WzQNBEH
irksome

If you do nothing else in your life, visit a northern clime during a hot solar cycle.

Iceland, 1984. It covered 270 degrees of the sky in full-spectrum color. It made a NOISE. I about froze to death but I could not stop watching.
Lelielle

“Incredible Aurora borealis” always seemed redundant to me, but this video was pretty awesome. I dislike the cold but I really need to head up north to check this stuff out, I wonder if that recent solar flare made for some nice Aurora..
tobergill

These things are universally time-lapsed. I’ve never seen them and always wonder what they look like in real time. Would I be disappointed that they’re not all-singing all dancing?
- Anonymous
  
  tobergill: I saw some from Stevens Pass in Washington State in 2004 (they are very rarely visible from that far south). Waves of a dim green light were traveling from horizon to horizon faster than your eye could track them or your brain could really fully perceive them. Auroras are 80km up and the solar wind that powers them moves at 400km/sec – while they can form standing waves, especially at higher latitudes, they can also move very quickly, faster than you can catch on film in such low light. If you get the chance, *go see them*.
- Sekino
  
  Even without the time-lapse, they do sway and flicker around a lot. There are few sights as gorgeous as aurora borealis; they definitely deserve all the hype.
  
  I’ll never forget when (when I was about 12) my mother came rushing in my bedroom late at night and we hurriedly drove outside the city to better see a spectacular display of multicoloured northern lights. To this day, I am SO thankful that she did because I have never again seen such huge, bright RED, golden and green aurora in our area (Ottawa, Canada). We do have some weak blue/green ones relatively often though.
- irksome
  
  Most emphatically, no.
  
  Franko: Check the Geophysical Institute. But there are no guarantees in life. http://www.gi.alaska.edu/
franko

man, i would LOVE to see aurora borealis in person. is there a way to basically assure that you’d see them if you went to a far-northern locale (like, only from nov-feb, for example), or do you just have to get lucky?
genre slur

Greetings form the North. Best kept secret we’ve got (well, the sense of space is up there, too).
Anonymous

those are amazing. i wonder how they managed to keep the lens from fogging or anything during those low temperatures
- BikerRay
  
  @Anon: Lenses don’t fog in the cold; they fog when you bring them in out of the cold into a humid environment.
  Tracking devices for time-lapse using stepper motors are available (or build your own, I did).
  And shooting stars? Try aircraft.
Art

The sheer beauty and visual photographic quality are astounding!

Absolutely astounding.
Anonymous

these are really great two minutes of video. fantastic work by the artist, this looks like many hours well spent.

i especially like the falling stars at 0:16 and 0:21.

.~.
PaulR

Me, I’m waiting for the MP3 files….