Northern Lights Photography Night in the Countryside near Akureyri

This is a hunt rather than a viewing platform. The drive goes out of Akureyri into the countryside, or up into the mountains, away from the electric glow and the sound of the town. Where it ends up depends on the weather, as it always does. The physics is simple enough to explain while everyone waits: particles collide in the magnetic field over the polar cap, and light comes out of the collision. What that looks like from the ground is colour and texture moving across a frozen winter sky. Finding the right foreground for a photograph is only half the job here. The other half is standing still long enough to watch something that will never repeat in exactly that form.