Nomads i Norden 2: The Lights! Hurtigruten Day 4, Evening

We got lucky, and had TWO fine displays on the very first evening above the Arctic Circle! And to top it off….connectivity! However briefly….
Here are a few of the 40+ images Lars took on the evening of 15 Feb 2015, between Svolvær and -------. Northern Lights started immediately after the 1st sitting at dinner, at about 19:30. The wind was strong enough to make walking difficult. All photos were taken with a tripod, 18mm lens, 30 sec exposure, f4.5, 2-second shutter delay. Thanks to strong wind, Lars used one hand to hold tripod firmly against deck and the other to hold himself upright. Strong winds mean nice waves, which mean that EVERYTHING the camera sees (except for the ship) is smeared/blurred. The strange blue figures in the images are blue stars and identical red figures are from red stars. IF so inclined, you could study ship’s motions from these figures. These are NOT ideal conditions for taking “high resolution” images. Still, Northern Lights are not full of fine details, so, it “works”. That is, until sub-freezing, windy conditions chase the photographer back to a warm cabin. In this case Lars lasted longer than this light display. However, he did not go out to do it again with the later display, about 23.00. Sleep in warm bed was more appealing. Sheila went out to watch, and later requested lessons on using the camera, in case this happens again. She’s much more of a night-owl, and conditions look to be equally good for sightings tonight.
These images have generally been cropped and all have brightness, etc. altered to give more detailed images than seen by eye, especially range of colors.
At the bottom of some images are horizontal pinkish blobs from town lights reflecting off low clouds.
When Lars started taking these pictures Northern Lights were brightest and slowly became dimmer, more or less as seen from start to end of this series of images.

Sometimes the Northern Lights were in front of us, as above, sometimes behind us, as in picture including part of ship, sometimes directly overhead, as in next two images.