Iceland is also a good choice, although cloudy skies may make it difficult to catch auroras on any one particular night. Many local people speak English in those regions and there are lots of tours available. So where should you go? If you live in Europe, the easiest thing to do is head to the far northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The Canadian Space Agency offers a l ive feed of the skies above Yellowknife (opens in new tab), in Canada's Northwest Territories, during the fall, winter and spring when the sun goes below the horizon. Also, a citizen science website called Aurorasaurus (opens in new tab) gives on-the-ground instant information from aurora enthusiasts wanting to alert the community to new sky shows.Īnd you can have an aurora experience without even leaving your house if you so choose. One predicting only the next half hour is available on NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Website (opens in new tab). You can get an idea of how active the northern lights are likely to be in your area by keeping tabs on a short-term aurora forecast, such as the one provided by the Geophysical Institute (opens in new tab). The aurora is a sporadic phenomenon, occurring randomly for short periods or perhaps not at all." "Active periods are typically about 30 minutes long and occur every two hours, if the activity is high. local time, although an active period can occur anytime during the dark hours," Deehr wrote in the guide. "Dress warmly, plan to watch the sky between 10 p.m. Ideally, time your trip to coincide with the new moon, and make sure to get away from city lights when it's time to look up, he added. Winter and springtime are generally less cloudy than autumn in and around the northern auroral zone, so planning a trip between December and April makes sense. You also need clear, dark skies, emphasizes Charles Deehr, a professor emeritus and aurora forecaster at the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute, whose guide to aurora viewing (opens in new tab) has lots of great information. "The solar cycle is indeed ramping up and as solar activity increases, so do the chances for Earth-directed blobs of plasma, the coronal mass ejections, which drive the geomagnetic storms and aurora."īut it's not just the solar weather forecast you need to monitor to have the aurora experience of a lifetime. "There will continue to be aurora viewing opportunities in 2022," Steenburgh said. When the sun shoots these geysers of plasma in the direction of Earth, wonderful auroras can be expected. Coronal mass ejections are the most powerful source of charged particles emitted from the corona, the sun's upper atmosphere. The good news is that the sun's 11-year cycle of activity has just picked up and we will see more sun spots, flares and coronal mass ejections going forward than in the previous years. You need darkness to see the northern lights, and places in the auroral zone have precious little of it during the summer months. If you're planning an aurora-viewing trip, try not to schedule it in the middle of summer. The northern lights are more formally known as the aurora borealis, and are caused by interactions between the solar wind, which is the stream of charged particles emanating from the sun, and the Earth's magnetic field. Read on to find out when and where to see the northern lights, and what powers this dazzling display. For example, the summer may be a good time for a vacation, but a better time to see auroras is actually between winter and spring. But you need to know when and where to go.
If you need equipment, our roundups for the best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography can help make sure you're ready for the next aurora event.īut for those who are lucky enough to catch a strong display, the shimmering lights can appear like curtains, like pulses of jets or like other light-show phenomena - all available above your head, for free.įor best results, you can blaze your own trail somewhere along the "auroral zone" that encircles Earth's northern reaches.
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And if you're hoping to capture them on camera, consider our picks for the best equipment for aurora photography and how to edit aurora photos. Editor's note: If you hope to see the northern lights yourself, check out our guide on where and how to photograph the aurora.
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