"Wavy Curtain" or "Merry Dancers" type of aurora low over the northern horizon, captured with an 28 mm lens from Voorschoten, the Netherlands, during the bright aurora of April 6-7, 2000

The occurrence of Aurora (Northern lights) is in the mind of many associated with the arctic circle and not with the Netherlands. However, this is a mistake: this beautiful sky phenomena can on occasion be seen from the Netherlands as well!

I have seen very nice auroral displays from the Netherlands in 1990, 1991, 2000 and 2003, from locations close to Leiden. In the frame at left the thumbnails (click on them to see a large picture) will show you photographs of the bright aurora display of 6-7 April 2000. These pictures were shot with a 28 mm wide angle lens on 400 ASA color slide film at Voorschoten, a village close to Leiden & The Hague.

A friend of mine, Koen Miskotte from Ermelo, has some fantastic photographs of several Dutch aurora displays on his website: check out his url at http://home.planet.nl/~misko002/. His pictures include all-sky pictures showing the rare auroral corona, some backgrounds upon which are provided in a separate section (click here) of this website.

A good link with ins and outs (in Dutch) about aurora as visible from the Netherlands, is provided by url www.poollicht.nl.

If you like, sign my guestbook here!

LaMa 10-11-2003.