Claire's Northern Lights Flight
09 March 2022 - Omega
On Monday 21st February, I joined our Omega Northern Lights Flight from Birmingham Airport. I thought I would share a bit of information about the flight, and some pictures, so you can find out what they are all about.
We had a full flight with 170 passengers. Check-in opened at 17:00 and by 17:45, all passengers were ready to go with their boarding passes in hand.
At 18:00, we all went up to the Learning Hub at Birmingham Airport for a 1 hour presentation from Peter Truman our Astro Consultant and the guest astronomers who join all our Northern lights Flights. Pete Lawrence is highly regarded as a world-class astrophotographer and has appeared regularly on the BBC’s long-running The Sky at Night programme. Joining Pete was Nigel Bradbury who is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and has been an active amateur astronomer for over 40 years. The presentation included the logistics of the flight and a really interesting explanation of what we hoped to see in the night sky including the many constellations and (hopefully) the Northern Lights!
After clearing security, we all boarded the TUI aircraft and settled into our seats. Once on-board, we were reminded about the seat rotation process – each row of three passengers would rotate seats so that everyone had a chance to sit by the window – and the route that we would be taking was explained to everyone. In order for all the passengers to be able to get a clear view, it’s vital that the aircraft is in complete darkness, so that meant all internal lights on the plane were turned off around 20 minutes before we reached our holding point. This also meant that we couldn’t use the toilet whilst in darkness, so everyone made sure they made a visit before it went dark! Being on an aircraft in complete darkness is a very unusual experience, but everyone soon got used to it.
After approximately an hour in the air, we reached our holding point just north of the Shetland Islands. Once there, the pilot looped around a course, so that everyone got the chance to see the view on both sides of the plane. As our eyes were now accustomed to the darkness, when we looked out of the window we saw a magnificent display of stars… there were literally thousands of them!
Our astronomers gave a running commentary on what we could see outside the aircraft, so that everyone could relate it back to the presentation that we saw earlier. I was amazed at the difference the view out of the window was without any light pollution! We could clearly see The Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy as well as Polaris, Betegeuse, Gemini, Pieces, Leo and thousands of other stars……it was like being in an enormous planetarium!
After around 20 minutes, the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) made an appearance! It was quite faint at first and, to the naked eye, appeared as a white/grey band. Customers who had bought their digital cameras on board were able to get some great pictures as the camera lenses are able to pick out the colours of the aurora much clearer. We saw the aurora for quite a long time and it changed shape and size and glowed brighter and then went fainter as the flight progressed.
After just over an hour in our holding pattern it was time to head back home, so the lights were turned back on and refreshments were served – sandwiches and crisps plus tea and coffee - before we landed. Once on the ground, we all exited the airport very quickly and went home with our wonderful memories and photographs. The flight lands around 00:30 to 01:00.
I would really recommend this flight to anyone who is interested in seeing the night sky and the Northern Lights. We had a real mix of people on board – some had bought the flight as a gift, others were keen astronomers or photographers and others just wanted to enjoy a unique experience.
For more info on our Northern Lights Flights, visit: https://www.omegabreaks.com/itineraries/8832-northern-lights-flights