How To: The Northern Lights

My recent obsession is photographing the northern lights, so I’ve decided to put together a little “how to” for anyone interested in getting out there and seeing/shooting them.

First off, the northern lights are a phenomenon caused by solar storms on our sun. The sun emits gusts of charged solar particles hurtling across space and if earth ends up in the path of these particles they react with the earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field towards the poles. When the charged particles from the sun strike atoms and molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, they excite those atoms, causing them to light up. If you live in the higher latitudes you are much more likely to catch a glimpse of them. 

How do I know when to go look for them?
Personally, I am subscribed to http://earthsky.org/ newsletter, as well as the aurora forecast app on my phone and subscribed at http://www.aurorawatch.ca/alert. The app looks like this and gives you an idea of the likelihood of seeing them and the area they will be visible from.

Where should I go to see them?

If you are located at 50 degrees latitude or higher you probably don’t need to go far. Get out of the city to an area with minimal light pollution, and to the north of the source of the light pollution. Get your bearings, pull out your pretty smart phone and figure out which way faces the north or north east to see them.

How bright are they?

It really depends on the night, how far north you are, the intensity of the solar storm, cloud cover and how many beer you’ve had to drink. Some nights you can just see a greenish smokey slow moving cloud in the night sky. Most often it is a green band across the horizon. Other nights you get lucky and see pillars of colourful light raining down and lights dancing across the sky as if there is a big fire burning somewhere. 

How do I get a good photograph of them?

Unfortunately your cellphone camera isn’t going to cut it for this one. If you have a DSLR or camera with the ability to manually control the ISO, shutter speed, and aperture you should be able to get some good photos of them. 

1. Slap your camera on a tripod.

2. Set your wide angle lens focus to ∞ (infinity).

3. Set your aperture to be fairly wide open (2.8 or 3.5)

4. Set your ISO to 400-1600 depending on the conditions

5. Set your shutter speed to 10s - 20s

6. Aim your camera at the aurora part of the sky and see what you end up with.

Be patient, play around with composition to incorporate friends, structures or trees into the shot, stay warm and enjoy the rare sight.