Aurora Hunting Part 6 – Tools

This is Part 6 of my aurora-hunting info-dump, and this post is designed to introduce you to some useful apps and web tools that can help you catch catch an aurora display.

There are loads of apps and websites out there that can help you optimise your aurora hunting decisions. Here I will introduce you to the ones I tend to use.

Glendale App

First up is the Glendale App, which is widely considered the best aurora hunting tool. This is a web-based app which you can either view in a browser, or install on your phone. Go to https://aurora-alerts.uk/ and it will give you an installation link. I’ve not managed to find it on the android app store. This is a great app that is full of information. If you install it on your phone it will notify you when space weather is doing something interesting. I get alerts when there is a solar flare, when the space weather is starting to get stormy (“substorm onset” – aurora tends to not happen in Scotland at this point, but it can sometimes be a kind of “warm-up” phase for a bigger storm), and for yellow, orange, red, and major (purple) alerts. For northern Aberdeenshire, I normally tend to start paying attention at an orange alert, but I know I have missed some good shows this way, as sometimes the alert doesn’t activate until 10 minutes after the show has started.

When you open the app, the top section tells you where aurora might be visible, depending on the geomagnetic conditions, and light from the sun and moon. It might also make short term predictions of when to expect the next burst of activity. Sometimes these are bang on, other times they are off by 10-30 minutes, but they can be an invaluable heads-up if it takes you 20 minutes to get to your aurora viewing spot. The last time I used this, the burst of activity was about 15 minutes late, but was far more intense than I was expecting and turned out to be the best show I have seen from Scotland.

There is a map of live reports that shows you where aurora has been spotted (at least on camera), where it is cloudy, and where it is clear but there is no aurora. If your aurora viewing spot is close-by, this can be a great tool for deciding when to head out the door.

Below are a series of real-time data feeds that tell you about the geomagnetic conditions. I won’t go into detail her as the app’s info buttons give good concise explanations about what the readings mean. I’ve used these readings to decide whether to hang around a bit longer, or go home, when I have been out viewing the aurora and it has gone quiet.

Down near the bottom is a long range forecast, that gives predictions of activity up to 4 weeks in advance, based on coronal holes.

Since I started using this app, I tend to not pay too much attention to the other tools, but here are th ones I still refer to occasionally or used to use the most.

Space Weather Live’s auroral oval

The auroral oval webpage is a prediction of how big and intense the aurora currently is, based on real-time solar wind data measured by satellites. If you are wondering whether to head out the door or not, this can help your decision making, although I find the Glendale live reports more useful. In short, if the auroral oval is red or yellow close to your location, go hunting. If the predicted oval is small, dark green, and concentrated far to the north, then stay at home in the warm!

University of Alaska Fairbanks’ aurora forecast

This aurora forecast page is nice and simple. There are a series of maps, including NW Europe, that show the maximum predicted aurora activity for yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It shows where to expect aurora overhead, and how far south you might be able t see it on the horizon. A box on the right shows today’s forecast split into 3-hourly intervals. If you scroll down, you get a long range forecast. If you compare this to the Glendale long range forecast, you will notice that they don’t always agree. I haven’t tested this idea yet, but I’m guessing that the more forecasts agree, the more accurate they are likely to be.

This website also uses Kp numbers, which is a system for measuring the strength of the aurora. The bigger the number the more likely there will be aurora. Kp5 is the threshold for a geomagnetic storm, so pay particular attention to predictions of Kp5 and higher.  

Other forecasts

Auroraforecast.com has a different grading system, but provides a 3-day forecast that might be worth comparing with other forecasts.

Space Weather Live has a 3-day forecast split into 3-hour time slots. It also has a long term forecast that plots the moon phase as well.

Don’t forget

Wrap up warm – chances are you will be stood still, watching for quite a while. Despite very thick socks, I often have numb feet by the end of a night. Also think about the best gloves – mittens are great unless you are wanting to use your camera a lot. You don’t want to get numb fingers because you can’t operate your camera whilst wearing your gloves.

Camera tripod.

Depending on your viewing spot, you will probably need a decent torch. Remember a back-up and / or spare batteries. Don’t rely on your phone torch if you are also using your phone as a camera because you might run out of battery by the end of the night.

Make sure your camera batteries are fully charged well in advance – you don’t want your camera battery dying 10 minutes into a fantastic display (or maybe you do, so you can focus on watching it rather than photographing it?).

Patience.

I hope this series of blogs is helpful. If you have your own hints and tips to help see the aurora, please share them in the comments of any of these blog posts.

Happy hunting!

Aurora Hunting Part 5 – How to photograph it

This is Part 5 of my aurora-hunting info-dump, and this post is designed to help you figure out the best ways to take photographs of the aurora.

First of all, lets cover what to think about if you want to quickly point your camera at a light in the sky to see if it is the aurora. If you have an astrophotography mode on your phone, just use that – it will take about a minute to take the full image, but you will probably be able to see if it is green after 10-30 seconds. If you have a normal camera, I recommend using an ISO of around 5000 and a 5 second exposure. This should be more than enough to show up green if the aurora is there, but you will probably need to fine-tune your settings for nice photos, depending on the camera and conditions.

Over the years, I have used 4 different cameras to photograph the aurora:

1. A Canon Powershot A640 – a great little camera with lots of functionality, but not the best sensor, so photos taken in the dark are often kind of grainy. Unfortunately, Canon don’t make this kind of model any more.
2. A Canon Powershot G1X – an older model than the A640, but more powerful and with a great sensor that takes better photos in the dark.
3. A Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72 – a camera I mostly use for the superzoom function, but it has manual exposure control and various starry sky modes.
4. My Pixel 3a camera-phone.

In general, the better quality (i.e. more expensive) the sensor, the better quality night time, and thus aurora, photos you can take. Lower quality sensors need to receive more light to not make really grainy images. Having said that, camera technology moves on pretty quickly, and a lot of the mid-range cameras nowadays are probably more than adequate.

There are 5 main settings to be aware of when you are using a camera in manual mode to photograph the aurora:

1. Aperture – this is also known as the f-stop or f-number. In general, the smaller the number, the bigger the hole. Changing the aperture changes the depth of field and what the camera can focus on. We don’t need to worry too much about that for aurora photos, so I recommend just picking the smallest f-stop you have to let in as much light as possible.
2. ISO – this is the sensitivity of your camera’s sensor. Bigger numbers are more sensitive, so capture more light, but produce images that aren’t very sharp. That isn’t really a problem for the aurora because it isn’t a sharp and well-defined entity anyway. In general, image graininess increases with ISO, but the better quality sensors don’t start to get problems with graininess until you get to really high ISOs. On my cameras, I have found I get the best auroras at ISOs between 800 and 8000, but this will probably vary from camera to camera.
3. Exposure time / shutter speed – this is how long the shutter stays open for. Longer exposures allow more light into the camera, but also increase motion blur. Long exposures need a tripod, or at least something to rest your camera on. Exposures as short as 15 seconds can even produce star trails – where the stars in the image are elongated because they are moving across the sky with the Earth’s rotation. The optimum exposure time will probably depend on what the aurora is doing and what kind of photo you want. If it is really active and dancing, you could choose shorter exposures to try and capture the different features; or you could use a long exposure and let all the dancing blur into a brilliant splash of colour. I generally find that shutter speeds of between 3 and 8 seconds are best.
4. Focus – a lot of cameras struggle to focus in the dark, and it is so easy to get home after a night’s viewing and realise that all of your images are out of focus. Manual focus is your friend here – just focus to infinity and you are good to go.
5. White balance – modern cameras tend to adjust how they process the image depending on what they think the light source is. For example, sunny, cloudy, and fluorescent light sources all produce different coloured light, and if the camera doesn’t correct for this adequately, it makes all the colours look a bit off. I’m still experimenting with the best white balance options and don’t have any advice here, other than to try changing your white balance settings if you think your green aurora is too blue or yellow, or your pink aurora is too red or purple.

If you are wondering where to find and adjust all those settings… I find the easiest way is to use the “Tv” mode which lets you control shutter speed. The camera automatically selects the aperture (Av) and because it is dark it will just pick the largest aperture it can. ISO will be accessed via one of your camera menus, or you might have a dedicated button for it. Same for manual focus and white balance.

You might also want to either use a cable release or a 2 second timer to take the photo. Even if you have the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod, it will move slightly when you push the button. If there are any bright lights in the field of view, they will probably show that movement up on the image (you can see these light streaks in Photo #12 below).

If you have a camera that has a night-time or starry-sky mode, this will usually let you choose between a 15 second or 30 second exposure, and select the highest ISO that it can.

Smartphone cameras often have a night-mode, that uses a higher ISO, and sometimes a starry-sky or astrophotography mode. On the Pixel 3a, you get to the astrophotography mode by selecting night mode, and then making sure the camera is immobile. When it hasn’t detected movement for a few seconds it automatically switches to astrophotography mode. From what I can tell, this sets the ISO to ~800, and takes a series of 4-second exposures, over a 60 second period, that it then kind of adds together to make a single image. It means you get the same amount of light as a 60 second exposure, but without the star-trails, because each image is lined up to compensate for the movement. I find this takes more vibrant aurora photos than my other cameras, and is easier to quickly set up (as long as I can get the camera still enough). But be warned – if you want to get a selfie with the aurora, you need to stay put for the full 60 seconds, otherwise the processing that stacks the photos together will probably decide you are some kind of anomaly and just leave you out of the photo. If it is a strong display, the aurora might be bright enough for you to stop the photo after a few seconds, instead of waiting the full minute, so you can capture more of the individual features.

Photo #11 (left): Pixel 3a – astrophotography mode – f/1.8, around 14 stacked 4 second exposure images, ISO 802. Photo #12 (right) Canon Powershot G1X –  f/3.5, 6 seconds, ISO-800

Above I’ve posted 2 photos of the same aurora, taken a few minutes apart, and with different cameras. The left one is using the astrophotography mode on my Pixel 3a. The colours are really vibrant here and you can see the pink aurora at the top. The swirl above the chimney was quite active during this photo, and that has translated to a bright mass of colour that is difficult to see the structure in. The photo on the right was taken with my Powershot G1X with just a 6 second expsosure. This means the image isn’t as bright or vibrant, as it received less light, but you can see the structure of that swirl better than on the other image. Overall, the aurora has more of a yellow-tinge compared to the other photo – this will be because of a different white balance. You can also see how there is a colour change within the swirly curtain, that you can’t see on the Pixel image. The other thing I like about my Powershot is that I can zoom in and take photos that are more close up.

Getting the photos you want will always involve a lot of trial and error and getting to know your camera, but hopefully this is a good start for you.

If you have your own hints and tips for taking photos of the aurora, please share them in the comments.

Next: Apps and tools to help you in your hunt.

Aurora Hunting Part 4 – When to see it

This is Part 4 of my aurora-hunting info-dump, and this post is designed to help you identify the best times to view the aurora.

4.1 The best years to see it

Solar activity is cyclical, with cycles that start with a solar minimum, increase to a maximum, then return to a minimum, lasting around 11 years. Solar Cycle 25 started in 2019 and is expected to peak around 2024-2026. So the next few years should be particularly good for aurora watching.

4.2 Best time of year

The aurora “season” is winter. The reason it stops during the summer is because anywhere far enough north to regularly get the aurora doesn’t get dark enough to see it. The closer to summer you are, the more ungodly the hour you need to stay up for it to be dark enough for the aurora (if it gets dark enough at all). I did see the aurora from Edinburgh in August once, but that was past 2am.

I tend to pay attention to what the aurora is doing from late September to late March, and forget about it the rest of the time.

4.3 Best time of the month

Moon phase is a big influence on light levels. A bright full moon can add so much light to the sky that it washes out the aurora. This next photo shows an aurora display close to full moon.

Photo #9: Photo of the aurora taken close to full moon, with bright moonlight washing out the aurora. Pixel 3a 60s astrophotography mode

This photo is taken with the same settings as all the other Pixel 3a photos in this series of posts, from around the same location. You can see how much brighter the environment is because you can see the ploughed earth of the field in the foreground. The sky looks lighter overall and, while you can see the aurora on the camera, it looks very pale, washed out and diffuse. It was very difficult to see with the naked eye that night.

The best aurora viewing conditions are while the moon is below the horizon, or when it is close to new moon. If I were planning an aurora-hunting trip away somewhere, I would try and avoid the time around the full moon.

4.4 The best time of the day (or rather night)

There are a few factors that influence the best time. Obviously, the time of year will affect when it is dark enough to see the aurora, and weather and space-weather conditions vary on an hourly basis.

Geomagnetic storms can occur at any time of the day or night, but after a few years of keeping an eye on the auroral oval, I’ve noticed that the aurora tends to reach further south between around 9pm and midnight, and this is the time period I have seen the aurora most often. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen other times. A few months ago there was a big geomagnetic storm that gave a great show around 6pm – right when I was cooking dinner and wasn’t able to go and have a look. And if you are a night-owl, I’ve seen some lovely photos taken around 3 or 4am.

4.5 Weather conditions

Weather obviously is an important factor. It doesn’t matter what the aurora is doing if you have thick cloud in the way. I haven’t gathered enough data to test this, but it often feels like geomagnetic storms coincide with cloudy and stormy weather far more frequently than you’d expect from a random distribution.

If it is patchy cloud and a particularly strong aurora, your camera might be able to pick out the lights peeking through the gaps or thinner portions of the cloud, but it will be almost impossible to see it with your eyes. Also don’t let the overhead conditions fool you. Many a time I have looked out the window, seen stars above, and headed out to my aurora viewing spot, only to be thwarted by what I affectionately refer to as “that fucking cloud bank in the north”.

Photo #10. Trying to spot the aurora through “that fucking cloud bank in the north”. You can see green diffusing through a thinner part of the cloud in the bottom left, and diffuse pink above the cloud bank. Canon Powershot G1X. f/5, 15 second exposure, ISO = 4000.

If you are keen on photographing the aurora, wind can also be a problem, at least in Scotland. I have quite an old and heavy tripod, and have had to give up trying to take photos a couple of times because the wind was moving the camera around too much.

If you are planning an aurora-hunting trip, be as flexible as you can, keep an eye on the weather forecast, follow the clear skies, and don’t bother going out in the cold if there is a lot of cloud.

4.5 Space Weather Conditions

While the sun’s general level of activity varies on an 11 year cycle, space weather conditions affecting Earth vary over hours, days, and even months.

Coronal holes can last for months. They come in and out of view of the Earth as the sun rotates, so the enhanced solar wind that they generate ebbs and flows. Long term (days-weeks) aurora forecasts are usually based on these coronal holes. They can cause big geomagnetic storms and dramatic aurora displays, but they tend to be less intense than those caused by CMEs.

It takes 2-3 days for a CME to reach Earth, so if you are able to plan aurora hunting trips at short notice, keep an eye on the sun’s activity, and head out a day or two after a large CME. If the faster-moving solar wind from the CME is expected to arrive at the same time as solar wind from a coronal hole, even better!

All these different sources of solar wind mean that the solar wind is constantly fluctuating in intensity, so the probability of auroras forming is also fluctuating. Auroras are also more likely to form when the interplanetary magnetic field orientation shifts to the south. Short term aurora forecasts look at how the solar wind and magnetic fields are behaving and predict when the next burst of activity is going to be. You might get multiple bursts of activity over an evening, and using the tools I’m going to talk about in Part 6 are the way to maximise your chances of catching one of those bursts, without spending hours out in the cold.

Next up: How to photograph it

Aurora Hunting Part 3 – where to see it

This is Part 3 of my aurora-hunting info-dump, and this post is designed to help you identify the best places to view the aurora.

I’m writing this from a Scotland perspective, but most of the concepts should be applicable to anywhere in the northern hemisphere.

The further north you are, the greater the chance of aurora being visible, simply because you are closer to where it happens. From a UK perspective, Scotland is an obvious place, but I’ve seen people posting lovely photos and experiences from northern England the last year or so, and even seen reports of the aurora being visible in Norfolk.

But being close enough is only one small part of it.

You need a decent view to the north, with as little light pollution as possible. If you live on the south side of a large town or city, look for viewing spots you can access on the north side.

However, the distribution of light pollution can be a really important factor. Photo #5 was taken from SW Edinburgh with over 6 km of suburban lighting to the north. But this viewing spot had an unlit playing field immediately north of it – in my opinion this makes a massive difference – if you can get a couple of hundred meters of darkness immediately in front of you, the more distant light pollution isn’t so bad.

But on the other hand, you can see the impact that distant light pollution has in photo #4 in Part 2. Those lights on the horizon behind the chimney on the right of the image are from the town of Peterhead, 7 miles to the north. As you can see from some of the other photos, it isn’t always that bad – a bit of haze in the atmosphere makes the light pollution worse. But you can see how the aurora is far less distinct and harder to see where the light pollution is washing it out.

Light pollution can also come from cars. Car headlights are really bright nowadays, and the last time I was out aurora watching, I was being dazzled by cars driving towards me on a road that is almost 1km away. Those headlights sometimes reset your night-vision and your eyes need time to adjust to the darkness properly again.

Topography is also factor. For Scotland, the aurora is often quite close to the horizon, and it only gets higher in the sky with a very big storm. That means if you are on the southern flank of a hill, your view will be blocked. I live on the southern flank of a very small hill – it’s only an 8m height gain. But the hill is enough to stop me watching the aurora from home. If it is a particularly big storm, my camera will be able to see a hint of pink or green peaking above the houses on top of the hill, but the streetlights (and someone’s security light) on top of the hill definitely don’t help. Similarly, New Slains Castle would be a fantastic aurora viewing and photography spot if it weren’t for 6m hummocky rise directly to the north.

Photo #8. Aurora behind Slains Castle. This was a really big show. You can see columns, but this view misses all the action at the bottom of the arc. Compare with Photo #1, which was taken on the same evening

Compare Photo #11, taken at Slains Castle, with Photo #1, taken the same night, but from a viewpoint just 5m higher and with a flatter topography from the north. You can see that the view from the castle is missing all the action at the bottom of the aurora, including the arc shape and any curtains that are swirling around.

In my opinion, the optimum viewing location is looking north over the sea. Some of the best photos I’ve seen were taken from the Moray Coast, northern Aberdeenshire. The north coast of Caithness and Sutherland is another obvious choice if you are in the area or happy to add another 3 hours drive north. Many of the north facing beaches of the west coast or the Hebridean islands are also a good bet.

If you are planning a trip with aurora hunting in mind, it might be worth considering the weather too. For Scotland, the west coast tends to be cloudier, wetter, and windier, thanks to the Gulf Stream, while the east coast gets a lot more clear weather (but hey, this is Scotland – it gets it’s fair share of bad weather). I’ve not looked into how El Nino and La Nina conditions influence this, but if I were planning a trip specifically for aurora hunting, I would probably aim for the east to maximise the chances of clear weather (and hope I don’t invoke sods law and bring thick cloud to the east while the west has clear skies).

Next up: When to see the aurora

Aurora hunting part 2 – what to look for

This is Part 2 of my aurora hunting info-dump. More often than not, it is not easy to tell whether or not you are seeing the aurora, so this post describes how to “get your eye in”, identify whether that  faint light on the horizon is aurora or light pollution, and then be able to spot if it starts dancing.

First off, manage your expectations. Most aurora photos are a vivid green, but it doesn’t usually look like that to the naked eye. Before you feel cheated – most aurora photos aren’t heavily photoshopped or filtered (although modern cameras do a lot of automatic image-processing in the background). It is simply the case that most digital camera sensors have a higher sensitivity to colour than the human eye does, especially during a long exposure (more on photographing it later in Part 5).

I have seen the vivid green once, in Iceland, and it was amazing. I’m not sure what controls the colour intensity. I get the impression that the vivid green auroras are more common further north, and when magnetic storms are higher intensity. But I have also watched the aurora from a transatlantic flight, whilst over northern Greenland – that was spectacular – it felt like we were flying through the aurora and the movement and shapes it made were mind-blowing; but it was still a very pale green to the naked eye.

People also have different levels of colour sensitivity. My husband often says the aurora looks very green to him, while I am seeing it as a very pale grey-with-a-hint-of-green-if-I-squint-and-use-my-imagination.

Here are some photos from a moderate aurora display in October 2021. Here, I took a long exposure photo with a high ISO (left) then repeated with a lower ISO, adjusted so the photo looked more like what I could see with my eyes, at first glance, after looking at my phone or camera screen so my eyes weren’t fully adjusted to the darkness yet.

Photo #2 (left): Canon Powershot G1X, 6 second exposure; f/3.5;  ISO=5000; Photo #3 (right): Canon Powershot G1X, 6 second exposure; f/3.5; ISO=1250

That could be easily mistaken for light pollution, couldn’t it? At first glance it really doesn’t look like much, and I am sure lots of people have been out trying to view the northern lights and not realised that they are looking straight at it because they are expecting to see the left image, rather than the right. But don’t be disheartened. Once you realise that is the aurora, you start to get your eye in. You notice it’s form, the shapes, your eyes adjust to the dark, you see it dancing, and are awed by its beauty!

So, if it usually looks like light pollution, how can you tell whether what you are looking at is aurora? I have 2 techniques for this: 1) take a photo, and 2) know what kind of shapes, structures, and movements to expect.

I’ll go into more detail about photography in part 5, but if I want to know whether that diffuse patch of light in the north I am seeing is aurora or a patch of cloud reflecting Peterhead power station’s lights, I find somewhere to set up my camera and take a long exposure. If it is aurora, it will show up green. If not, it is usually a yellow-colour, depending on the atmospheric conditions and light source.

One of the most common aurora shapes is the arc. This forms a band of light arcing across the sky, with the highest point in the north.

Photo #4: The aurora forming an arc in the north. Mosaic panorama from 3 photos.

How high the arc is depends on the geomagnetic conditions and how far south the auroral oval has come. Once you realise this is the aurora, it seems really obvious that it isn’t light pollution – it would have to be a really unusual cloud to be making that kind of shape. But if you aren’t thinking “arc”, then it is easy to miss.

In my experience, when there is a fairly substantial geomagnetic storm happening, the arc will sit there for a few hours, and there will be intermittent bursts of activity where it “dances”; the arc might break up and disappear for a bit, being replaced with allsorts of cool shapes. But often the dancing will be centered on the arc itself.

When it is dancing, pillars are probably the most common structure. These are vertical shafts of light that fade in and out. The photo in part 1 shows lots of pillars radiating out of the arc. In the first two photos of this post, there are pillars that start below the arc. Pillars are usually a bit brighter than the arc (if the arc is still there). They can be just a single shaft of light, a few shafts clustered together, or span the entire sky. They can fade in and out in a matter of seconds, or might hang around for a couple of minutes.

Another common structure is what I call a curtain. This is a band of aurora that often has a kind of vertical pillar-like structure to it, but instead of the pillars all acting individually, they act as a single entity. This block of aurora ripples, almost like a curtain blowing in the wind. This is a photo of an aurora curtain taken in Edinburgh in March 2016. Obviously you can’t see the movement and rippling, but that undulating curve at the bottom of the aurora flows and ripples like a piece of fabric. Loke pillars, they last on the order of seconds to minutes. Their shape and position can change very quickly; I’ve seen curtains ripple from one side of the field of view to the other in just a few seconds, and I’ve also seen curtains hanging there gently undulating for a few minutes at a time.

Photo #5: Curtains of aurora over Edinburgh. Canon Powershot A640, f/2.8, 13 second exposure

When those curtains kind of fold around themselves, you get cool swirly shapes. These tend to evolve in shape and position over tens of seconds.

Photo #6: Loops and swirls at the bottom of the aurora curtain: Pixel 3a 60s astrophotography mode.

I’ve also seen ribbons of amorphous light snaking across the sky and slowly undulating, and irregular patches of bright light that fade in and out over a matter of seconds, sometimes with rainbow colours rippling across them.

Finally, there is the diffuse glow. This can be especially difficult to spot with the naked eye, unless the colours are particularly intense and / or you have particularly strong colour vision.

Photo #7: Diffuse aurora with some very faint pillars. Pixel 3a 60s astrophotography mode

Every time I have seen it like this, there is a lot of pink / purple in the aurora as well as the green. Sometimes the pink colour is easier to see with the eyes than the green.

How long does it last?

This can be pretty variable. There have been times I’ve spent a couple of hours watching the aurora. I’ve also layered up, grabbed my torch and camera, and legged it out of the door as soon as my phone app pings, only to miss the peak of the show by about 10 minutes and there is only a diffuse arc left (but I know it was a great show by all the photos people are posting). Sometimes the arc will hang around all evening with bursts of more intense activity. Other times there might be half an hour of activity, then nothing more.

Next up – where to see it!

Steph’s aurora hunting guide

Aurora Hunting part 1 – a brief introduction

It’s been a while since I posted anything here (life has been busy) and this post is going to be a bit of a departure from my usual climate change / energy transition / academic research type content. I’m going to talk about seeing and photographing the Northern Lights.

Photo #1: Mosaic panorama created from 5 photos taken with a Pixel 3a camera phone using 60s exposure astrophotography mode.

Since I first moved to Scotland in 2014, I’ve been enthusiastic about trying to see the aurora, and I’ve had some lovely experiences. Friends often ask my advice on how to maximise their chances of seeing the Merry Dancers, so I thought I would offer an info-dump about the tools and techniques I use, and how to get your eye in. I’m definitely not an expert, and there are probably plenty of better resources out there, but these approaches seem to work relatively well for me. Unless otherwise stated, the observations I describe are all from Scotland.

This info-dump comes in 6 parts:

1. This brief introduction
2. What to look for
3. Where to see it
4. When to see it
5. How to photograph it
6. Tools to help you catch a show

To view the aurora, you need a combination of conditions:

• Dark skies (this applies to light pollution from cities, but also the moon, and the sun).
• The right weather conditions (i.e. not cloudy, especially in the north)
• The right space-weather conditions

I’ll cover weather and dark skies at various points in these posts, but I want to start with a very brief introduction to space weather, as this is less intuitive. A basic understanding will help you get the most out of various apps and websites and maximise your chances of seeing the aurora. There are loads of great resources out there, that I encourage you to go and read as they will be much better than the bare minimum I’m offering here. In short:

• The sun is a big ball of plasma that has a magnetic field.
• The sun is constantly emitting charged particles that form the solar wind. Features on the surface of the sun called coronal holes emit more solar wind.
• As the sun rotates, its magnetic field gets tangled up.
• Those tangled magnetic field lines interfere with convection within the sun, causing sunspots.
• Sometimes the magnetic field lines ping back into place, releasing light and energy as solar flares, and matter (charged particles) as coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
• CMEs increase the solar wind in the direction of the ejection; so if a CME happens towards Earth, then the earth will get more solar wind.
• It takes 2-3 days for matter released during a CME to reach Earth.
• The sun also has a large magnetic field that affects the entire solar system and is carried by the solar wind. This is the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF).
• The IMF and the solar wind both interact with the Earth’s magnetic field. When they all interact in a certain way, charged particles in the solar wind are funnelled along the Earth’s magnetic field lines to the magnetic poles, where they interact with the atmosphere and form auroras.
• So more solar magnetic activity increases the solar wind hitting Earth, and makes more aurora events.
• The sun’s magnetic activity seems to be cyclic, with solar cycles lasting 10-11 years. The current cycle (Cycle 25) started in 2019 and is expected to peak between 2023 and 2026.

Next up: What to look for