http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/world/europe/iceland-northern-lights-aurora.html 2016-09-29 15:34:39 Reykjavik Briefly Swaps Its City Lights for Northern Ones The Icelandic capital went dark Wednesday night, after the City Council switched off street lamps and encouraged residents to turn off their lights. === Lights off. Lights on. Reykjavik went dark Wednesday night, after the The goal: To get light pollution to a minimum in order to provide the best possible viewing conditions for a particularly intense display of the According to the Icelandic Met Office’s website, which offers a The lights had been predicted to appear around 9 or 10 p.m., so the city had sought to impose the blackout for an hour, starting at 10 p.m. But the show was slow to start, and the lights were kept off until midnight. The Icelandic police had warned people watching the lights to be careful, emphasizing the dangers of observing the phenomenon while in the middle of the street or in a car parked on the roadside. Tourists and residents posted stunning images on social media. “The lights were really strong in the last two nights. It was unbelievable,” said Florian Schade, 18, from Hamburg, Germany, who has been living in Mr. Schade took his photographs, which he posted on Instagram, on Wednesday night at a parking lot. The northern lights, which are produced when Although the sight on Wednesday was impressive, all things are relative. The website Iceland Monitor