With the Northern Lights season upon us, we are once again at KEOPS (Kiruna Esrange Optical Platform Site) at SSC (Esrange Space center) in Kiruna, Sweden. This time, I happened to meet an observation team from Korea at KEOPS. They were here to coordinate their project to measure density fluctuations in the ionosphere from GPS signals. After showing each other our instruments, we snapped a commemorative photo. For our part, we installed a third (all-sky) camera, which will be used to monitor the night sky at all times. Only when the aurora appears, will activate the 2D spectrograph and filter spectrograph to take data. This all-sky camera will serve as a monitor of auroral occurrences.

Luckily for us, the Aurora Borealis appeared as early as 10 a.m. on the day of our arrival in Kiruna (on 9th October). We went outside the hotel for our first aurora experience. It was a weak aurora, so we only saw a white cloud-like blur. On the thirteenth the sky cleared well and we were lucky enough to see active auroras and get observation data. However, the color was still whitish. I was so happy to see the aurora borealis, even though it was white! When photographed, they turn a beautiful green color. It's like magic. Most auroras start out as a straight band, but eventually become like a curtain and shake dynamically. It was an aurorashow that lasted about two hours.