The starry sky on Bornholm, in fall
Autumn is the best time for stargazing and enjoying the beautiful night sky on Bornholm, because you can enjoy both summer- and winter star pictures. In the evenings, you will experience Milky Way standing as a pillar rising right above the horizon. After midnight, Winter constellations will begin to shine.
In the fall the sun starts to set earlier and earlier, but that’s a good thing for stargazing – because then there’s no need to stay awake until late in the night, and only start your observations there. In October you can already enjoy the milky way as soon as 7 o’clock in the evening.
In October you can see the Orionids meteor shower, and those with a telescope or a great camera can see the Andromeda galaxy.
The Winter Night of Bornholm
In the wintertime, darkness dominates the sky above Denmark – especially on Bornholm! The nights are long, and that’s a great thing if you want to go out into the dark and observe the stars.
When the air gets colder and much cleaner – you will see the stars flickering like diamonds as tiny ice particles fill the crisp winter air. Follow the path of the Orion’s belt down to the left and you will see the brightest star of our night sky – Sirius. When the star is rising above the horizon, at first it might look like a UFO! It flickers vigorously because of the stars powerful brightness when it shines through the earth’s atmosphere.
The king of all the meteor showers, Geminids, shows its full power in mid-December with up to 120 colorful meteors per hour. While the radiant is in the heart of the Gemini constellation, you’ll still be able to see bright meteors flying across the entire night sky. If you’re on Bornholm right before Christmas eve, you’ll also be able to see the Ursids meteor shower
Good apps and webpages for the night sky
Are you not the best at recognizing the constellations and finding the andromeda galaxy, then don’t lose hope. Luckily a long rack of apps has been developed, to help you find different constellations and the phenomena that’s worth seeing the night you’re out. Here’s three apps I recommend:
You can also follow the forecast for the northern lights at aurora-service.eu or aurora-alerts.com. Even though a lot of things repeats itself yearly on our night sky, there from time to time are some special phenomena – as an example: In 2020 comet C / 2020 F3 (also called NEOWISE a lot of places) was seen in a period of time. If you follow spaceweather.com you’ll always be updated.
About the author
Ruslan Merzlyakov is a professional and award-winning astrophotographer with more than 7-years of experience with photographing the night sky. He was chosen for Astronomy Photographer of the Year (2017, 2018, 2019) and won the Dark Sky award in 2019.
As a pioneer and leading photographer in the nightscape-genre in Denmark, Ruslan’s works have been published in national and international media, such as NASA, National Geographic, BBC, Forbes, TV2, DR1, Digital Foto and others.
Ruslan Merzlyakov had worked with companies like VisitDenmark, Visit Norway, Vordingborg and Thisted Municipalities, Aarhus University and Dark Sky Møn.
See more astrophotographs on his Instagram here: @astrorms
