Astrophoto: Stunning Northern Norway Aurora

By Nancy Atkinson - March 20, 2013 at 5:56 PM UTC | Planetary Science

Photographer Frank Olsen from Norway was feeling left out of the recent auroral activity from the Sun's activity last Friday, as his region in northern Norway was socked in with clouds. "I really envied those Alaska guys that brought home amazing pictures," he said on

his Flickr page

. But he was rewarded with an awesome view of the aurora last night (March 19, 2013) and took this beautiful panorama of 8 images. pictures. "A half moon lit up the sky just perfectly," he said. "To the right, the small town of Sortland, and to the left the even smaller town of Stokmarknes. In between Langøya (long) island." Click on the image to see a larger version, and Frank has a 20 MB version, too.

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com