Johan Nensén successfully captured both the Geminids & northern lights in the same photo

Last Monday, we advised about the Geminids meteor shower which reaches its peak on Thursday evening, 14 December 2024.

However, one person who started the hunt to capture a Geminid in a photo earlier than that is Johan Nensén Lindqvist, who was in Värmland for work. During the night, he went out and saw that the clouds had dispersed – and he took out his camera.

– I went to work outside Molkom, Värmland, without any thought that there would be either northern lights or Geminids for me, since SMHI had promised clouds all night. But around 2 am, I was outside with the trash and saw a star and got a little hopeful. When I looked out again just before 4 am, there was not a cloud in the sky and during the few minutes I was out, I saw three decent Geminids and a dancing aurora low on the horizon, Johan tells Kamera & Bild.

– The northern lights needed to climb quite a bit above the horizon to get over the roof of the house. I joked with an acquaintance that I wanted a proper Geminid, northern lights, and the house where I work all in the same picture, he explains.

And he succeeded.

– When I sit in the car ready to go home, I look at the timelapse in the camera and I see how it really flares up at one point. Once home, I find it among the roughly 2000 exposures I took and it turned out almost as good as it gets under the poor conditions that prevailed. I immediately thought that I probably need to make a print of it and give it to the boss as a Christmas present, he concludes.

The picture was then published by Johan in the Northern Lights group on Facebook – see the post and all comments here.

Johan was also one of the participants in the Kamera & Bild and Zoom Fotoresor trip to Abisko led by Göran Strand, which took place in the autumn of 2023. Read more in the travel report "Northern Lights in Abisko – The Quest for the Magical Light" to find out what it's like to photograph the northern lights in Abisko.

Photograph the Geminids tonight 14 December

While you're out photographing the Geminids – also keep an eye out for the northern lights – check out these 8 quick tips for better northern lights photos, and keep an eye on the group Northern Lights on Facebook to see if others manage to capture it on camera.