Aurora Pixabay
Martez Fields
Lastly, many early Chinese legends about auroras are populated with the idea that dragons caused the northern lights. These dragons were said to have fought in a celestial battle between good and evil, breathing fire across the sky. One of the oldest known aurora sightings was recorded in China in the year 2600 B.C.
Kirkjufell Mountain on the west coast is a highly acclaimed viewing location in the country. But on especially clear nights, you can catch the Iceland northern lights in Reykjavik's suburbs. The Grotta Lighthouse is a very popular viewing spot.
Norway and Greenland are also excellent viewing spots, as are northwest areas of Canada, due to the latitude and lack of light pollution. There's a better than average chance you'll see lights over Prosperous Lake in the city of Yellowknife. You can even watch a live feed, brought to you by the Canadian Space Agency.
Fairbanks, Alaska is likely the best place to see aurora borealis in the United States. The city is located inside the Auroral Oval; the area hovering above the North Pole. This means sighting chances are very good from the end of August through the end of April.
The solar storm that pushed the Northern Lights much farther south than normal is expected to continue Sunday night and possibly into the week, forecasters say, but the impact won't be as strong as in previous days.
Meanwhile, while the storm had an impact on power grids, telecommunications and global positioning systems, only minor disruptions were reported as the storm sent powerful electromagnetic pulses toward Earth.
The series of powerful coronal mass ejections that arrived on earth on Friday produced dazzling shows across the Northern Hemisphere on Friday and Saturday for places that don't normally see them, including parts of China, Europe and the United States.
Solar activity produces ejections of energized particles that interact with gasses in the Earth's atmosphere and produce auroras that hover around its poles. They're known as the aurora borealis around the North Pole and the aurora australis around the South Pole.
In the U.S., viewings were reported as far south as Alabama and Georgia as well as northern California. The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) said the powerful geomagnetic storm will become more intense through Sunday night and the aurora will become visible again at lower latitudes.
The solar storm's origin is connected to a cluster of sunspots on the sun's surface. The spots are filled with magnetic fields that can act as slingshots, sending large amounts of charged particles toward Earth. The events are known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and are more common toward the peak of the sun's 11-year solar cycle, in 2025.
While the extreme storms create conditions for the lights to expand far away from the poles, those conditions can disrupt electrical power grids and cause blackouts and degrade satellite communications and navigation systems.
The SWPC received reports of power grid irregularities, disrupted high-frequency radio communications, degraded GPS, and modified spacecraft operations during Friday and Saturday's G5 storm, said Lt. Bryan Brasher, a project manager with the agency.
"We heard of issues with the use of precision GPS in agriculture from various parts of the Midwest and both American and European satellite navigation augmentation systems registered notable (but not necessarily impactful) changes in position accuracy," he said.
"The bulk of the material will likely pass ahead of Earth, however, the interplanetary space is very disturbed still and even just the flanking edge of the latest CMEs will likely result in strong-severe conditions," he said.
Our travel guide explains everything you need to know, from southern lights and northern lights differences to the most compelling corners of the earth to witness, or even chase, these elusive, unpredictable auroras in real life. Some vantage points are a world away, while others may be closer to your own backyard.
One of the key differences between aurora borealis and aurora australis centers around where each rarity takes place. Northern lights streak across the heavens in remote destinations close to the North Pole, especially those near the Arctic Circle, and far away from cities (where light pollution occludes visibility). Aurora borealis has earned more of a reputation because the light dance is more visible from these expansive prime areas, including Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Sweden, and Norway, which tops the list.
The fascinating tableau you see also depends on the gasses released into the night sky. Oxygen emits a red or greenish-yellow light. The higher the altitude (about 300 km or 186 mi) the more likely pinks and reds will appear. Nitrogen flashes blue and purple, a less common color story, at different altitudes. The spectral spectacle of southern lights and northern lights may last for mere minutes or several days.
To get rid of this frustration once and for all, we asked someone who photographs both the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) and the Southern Lights to give us his photography tips. Eric Katich, a snow groomer for ski fields in New Zealand and Sweden, hops between the remote mountains of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere every year giving him the unique opportunity to spot both auroras and, better yet, get some amazing snaps.
That leads us onto lenses. While professional photographers crack out the wide-angle lenses or prime lenses, for the rest of us there is no need to blow all your money for such a rare occasion on lenses.
So once you are set up with your camera on your tripod, set your camera to manual focus, as the autofocus feature usually finds in hard to focus on faraway objects at night. To focus, use the live view and play with the focus until it looks right. If you have found the perfect focus, another trick is to tape the focus ring in place so it stays in focus.
The information in this guide has been compiled from our extensive research, travel and experiences across New Zealand and the South Pacific, accumulated over more than a decade of numerous visits to each destination. Additional sources for this guide include the following:
This article has been reviewed and approved by Robin, who is the co-founder of NZ Pocket Guide. With more than 15 years of experience in the New Zealand tourism industry, Robin has co-founded three influential tourism businesses and five additional travel guides for South Pacific nations. He is an expert in New Zealand travel and has tested over 600 activities and 300+ accommodations across the country.
One of the most magnificent phenomena of nature is the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis, seeing which most watchers become breathless. Auroral displays can be numerous colours, though the most widespread colours are pink and pale green. Shades of yellow, red, blue, green and violet are sometimes seen. The lights come into view in various forms from blotches or dispersed hazes of light, to ribbons, arches, undulating draperies or spurting rays that illuminate the sky with a supernatural glow.
Many people are curious to know what causes the Northern Lights and where they can see them. The lights look like a mystery, and there is a range of explanations. This article will help answer those questions.
For millennia, the Northern Lights have acted as the source of superstition, speculation and awe. This superb natural phenomenon has been illustrated in cave paintings dating back 30,000 years in France. In times of superstition, people used to think about the Northern Lights as a forerunner of war or devastation, before they actually comprehended what causes the lights. Numerous authors, classic philosophers, astronomers, together with Descartes, Aristotle, Halley and Goethe, mentioned the Northern Lights in their work.
In 1616, Galileo Galilei, the great astronomer, made use of the name Aurora Borealis to identify the Northern Lights, seizing the mythical name of the Roman goddess, Aurora, and the name of the north wind, Boreas.
The Northern Lights result from collisions between gaseous particles in the atmosphere of the earth and the charged particles emitted by the sun. When the charged particles from the sun move through the magnetic shield of the earth, they merge with atoms or molecules of nitrogen, oxygen and other gases and the result is the amazing spectacle of lights in the night sky.
The Northern Lights are present at all times, but winter is frequently the best time to see the lights. This is because during the winter light pollution levels are lower and the air is clear and crisp.
March, April, September and October are also the months when you can see the lights best. The lengthier darkness periods, as well as the occurrence of clear nights offer lots of good chances to view the auroral shows. Normally midnight is the top time to view the spectacles.
Now that you have learnt what causes the Northern Lights and when you can see them, you can make a plan to watch this amazing light display at some point. Of course, you must watch them in the months of winter. Norway is admired due to mild winters and is a tad pleasanter than some other colder places. The temperatures are normally found to be in the single digits during the winters.
Though we have understood what causes the Northern Lights, still there are many people who are cynical regarding their real cause. Since the wonderful natural phenomenon is always being studied by science, increasingly people are going to Polar regions to know what the beautiful lights are all about. Soon these people turn into believers and pursue the Northern Lights to view and learn more about them.
Russia is perhaps the least-visited aurora borealis destination in the northern hemisphere. Geopolitical tensions make it cumbrous for most travelers to visit Russia at all, much less to see the aurora. For those willing to complete necessary visa paperwork and plan an itinerary in full ahead of arrival, you might be pleasantly surprised viewing the northern lights in Russia.
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