Hurtigruten Astronomy & Aurora Voyage, March 2026

On board the MS Kong Harald

Last updated:     3^rd July, 2026.

Lecture slides

Scroll down for my photos from the trip

Lecture 1:   Introductions, and the the Night Sky during the Voyage [PDF file]

• Link to a video of the aurora from my previous trip (March/April 2025) on board Hurtigruten's MS Richard With.

Lecture 2:   Astrophotography [PDF file]

Lecture 3:   The Aurora [PDF file]

• Link to a video of the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse, as seen above Waxahatchie, Texas.
• A time-lapse movie from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, showing a loop of hot plasma being ejected from the Sun.
• Visualisation of the source of the aurora - gas from the Sun interacting with the Earth's magnetic field.
• Time-lapse movie of aurora over Brighton on the south-coast of England, in October 2024.
• Animation of the solar activity that led to visible aurora across the UK (movie taken from the SOHO movie theater website)
• Time-lapse movie of aurora over Brighton in May 2024.
• Aurora forecasts from the Geophysical Institute at the university of Alaska.
• AuroraWatch UK from the Universiy of Lancashire.
• SpaceWeather.com

Lecture 4:   Distances [PDF file]

Lecture 5:   The birth and death of stars and galaxies [PDF file]

• UKAFF super-computer simulations of the formation of stars in a star cluster - from way-back in 2002! (but the supercomuter used to be in the office next door to me at the University of Leicester!)

Lecture 6:   Our Violent Universe [PDF file]

Lecture 7:   Modern Astronomy [PDF file]

• Time-lapse movie from Hale Pohaku, the site of the astronomers hotel half-way up Mauna Kea, on the Big Island of Hawai'i.
• The Nordic Optical Telescope in La Palma.
• The atmospheric distortion of the Moon due to our atmosphere.
• Driving down from UKIRT at the summit of Mauna Kea, down to the astronomer's hotel at Hale Pohaku.

Lecture 8:   Why We Are Here [PDF file]

• Tracks from natural background radiation traveling through a cloud chamber at the University of Sussex.
• Star cluster formation simulation.
• Artist's visualisation of a supernova explotion.
• Another UKAFF super-computer simulation, this time of the merger of two neutron stars forming a black hole in a short gamma-ray burst.
• Earth-rise, as seen by the Japanese Kaguya space-probe orbiting the Moon.
• BBC Earth footage of mudskippers.
• The final lecture was concluded with the superb video Infinity Squared, by Uncage the Soul Productions.

My Photos & Videos from the Voyage