Night photo 8 July 2021 at 01.26 (author’s photo)

Night Photo and White Nights

Inspired by Luciano’s night photos

I have the good fortune of my old Nikon Coolpix P80, which has a “scene” function that can capture different types of scenes, so in the following it has been on “night landscape”.

The first photos are from this summer with the “white nights” in northern Denmark, the same phenomenon that has made St Petersburg’s summer skies known world-wide. The clouds high up in the sky are lit up by the sun, which is only about 12° below the horizon at night.

Night sky on 12 July at 02.46, so not that far from sunrise — you can see the sky to the left (north) already coloured by the sun (author’s photo)

The following photo is from about two weeks earlier, just after Summer Solstice, on 22 June just after midnight. As Luciano wrote, the photos do seem to become grainy from the strong light differences, something quite clear in both the lead photo and this next one.

Night after summer solstice 2021 at 00.05 (author’s photo)

The above photos are from six months ago whereas the next ones are from this week. We have finally seen the sun again after two weeks of persistent grey skies. The clouds are now back after four days of clear weather and we are expecting snow within the next day or two — White Christmas? maybe, it is some years since we had one.

The first one below is inspired by the beautiful evening skies that K. Barrett delighted us with a couple of days ago.

Late afternoon 20 December 2021 (author’s photo)

Just as the darkness crept in, I spotted Venus on the southern horizon in the dwindling light — the remnants of the blue sky being replaced by the purple from the sun, now below the horizon. It is this hour of gloaming which can be quite difficult to catch on a camera. This worked out, though, through the branches.

Venus in the light from the setting sun (author’s photo)

Two nights before, on 18 December I had caught the full moon rising, due east.

As you can spot, the contours of the trees have become quite blurred, but the moon is fairly clear in spite of the misty air (authors’ photo)

Finally, last night’s moon. The clouds have gathered once again and the smell of snow is in the air and temperatures are below zero; all combine to produce a halo around the moon.

Full moon 21 December 2021 just after midnight (author’s photo)

The halo around the moon reminds me of looking up into the centre of the ceiling in the Hall of the Two Sisters in the Palace of the Lions in Alhambra with its delicate muqarna ceiling. The grainy character of the halo does give the impression of delicate muqarnas …

So now you have a midnight photo from both the summer and the winter solstice.

Wishing you all happy holidays.