Green flash over the North Atlantic Ocean

I am currently working as an astronomy lecturer for a German tour group sailing the Norwegian cost on the Hurtigruten vessel MS Nordnorge. On October 8, around sunset we crossed the Vestfjord a stretch of open sea between the Norwegian mainland and the Lofoten islands. Since I expected to see a green flash, I prepared everything to capture the phenomenon.

I was not disappointed. Through my 600 mm telephoto lens I could clearly see the green an blue flash. Closer inspection of the images afterwards also revealed that I also manage to capture a purple flash in the last fractions of a second before the upper limb of the Sun entirely disappeared.

I am attaching a panel which collects crops from the last 30 images in my picture series which show the development of the phenomen over the last 12.66 seconds (according the time stamps created using GPS time). I have also created a very nice gif animation of the event, which you can find (along with additional pictures) on my homepage.

Author: Benjamin Knispel, Hannover, Germany

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