Aurora Barealis....

sometimes the job brings unmatched beauty and i can just look out of the window and enjoy the show.

this week it was the case with the strongest northern lights i have seen in the recent (about 10) years!

they began as a dim little light and rose to really bright intensity, lasting a mere two and a hlaf hours on the way from anchorage to new york and they are  keeping me at awe for the whole time constantly changing in brightness, shape and reach over the northern horizon!

from the aircraft it is hard to judge the altitude, i can only observe that they are way higher than we fly, at this time it was  all FL330 to 350, or 33.000 to 35.000 ft that is corresponding to 10.000 to 10.700 meters for our metric friends...

please enjoy the show with me!

all pictures from the same flight, some just 5 minutes apart,

the new cameras with high iso capabilities of 6400 to 12800 iso can finaly bring the beauty to You, even from a moving flight deck at Mach .84!

all picture with my beloved nikon D750 with 20mm/f1.8, a perfect combination for nightflying!

for the crazy fisheye stuff please refer to my friend and coworker here:

https://www.instagram.com/jpcvanheijst/?hl=en

morning departure at luxembourg

beautiful morning light compensates for leaving bed at 4am...
tired we walk to work and wait if the weather is rewarding us and sometimes we get lucky!
lux and view onto trier...


cu
brgds
nuck

anchorage again...

back from vacation on a round the world trip from luxemburg via kuwait and hongkong to anchorage....

love the view from my room and finally found the right yoga for me 😀

brgds

cu

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A summerwalk in Novosibirsk

Novosibirsk features the perfect weather now in the summer, long days, warm but not hot temperatures, usually dry with a little rain to keep everything green.

people enjoy their time outdoors and who has the possibility even drives out into the wast forests to their little dacias.

unfortunately our stay is rather short and not providing time to drive out of town, so a little walk inbetween flights has to do...

brgds

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new york again...

on the last circumnavigation via Dubai, Hongkong and Anchorage I had a short 23 hour stopover in new york again, and while I hate the chaos at JFK, i love to stay in the city for a few days. this time the weather was pleasant and after my compulsory stop at B&H I walked to the Rockefeller Center to take a look at the new Jeff Koons installation of a dancer and since there was for once no line at the elevator I went up to enjoy the late evening view...

cu brgds

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Baku - Aszerbaidschan

while Baku considers itself belonging to Europe, as proven regularly with the European Song Contest and other events, and despite the fact, that the city has been shaped and improved quite a lot in the last 14 years that i am visiting regularly, there are always some strange things about this city...

the last years saw the construction of the first highways in the country, and while people still drive completely mad compared to central Europe, the procedures and safety regulations seem not to exist here. as an example i photographed the strange sweeping ladys on the highways, a thing that would be forbidden and considered far too dangerous in central Europe:

in complete peace of mind they can be found just inches from the cars running at 130 km/h....

the on the other side the city gets more and more modern, stylish and to the opposite of what i thought, everything that is reshaped and refurbished gets treated well and seems to be kept in good condition, like the growing parks, main roads or freschly planted forests. thats why it gets increasingly attractive to walk the streets and parks, search for new cafe's and enjoy the sunlight outdoors - if its not too windy it is, because for a good reason Baku is also called the windy city and can be stormy and chilly at times!

here some of the more appealing views...

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luxembourg - mexico....

fun flight today!
due to strong jet-streams creating a lot of headwind we were routed from lux to mexico on a very northern route with exceptional beautiful weather and a nice view of island!
(over greenland i was sleeping and left the aircraft and view to my two wonderful colleges)

on the chart you can see several things,
first - the blue jetstreams, strong wind currents spanning the globe with windspeeds of 100 to 300 km/h;
second - the tracks of the north atlantic track system, which are calculated twice a day to provide minimum headwind or maximum tailwind, hence creating a minimum flighttime flexible route system;
third - the shortest way is not always the fastest - our company minimized todays flighttime by an diversion of additional 500 NM (900 km), but avoiding headwind and instead using crosswind aereas.

island pix taken just northwest of Reykjavik....
(love the islanders and their culture, will have to visist the island!)
brgds
nuck