Northern lights. Aurora Borealis. The Green Lady. The Dancing Lady.

She goes by so many different names but we all know the phenomenon. It’s one of the must-see’s on nearly everyone’s bucket list, even mine. While I have been fortunate enough to see her before in Norway, I’ve never seen her quite as I did in Iceland. Being surrounded by these mystic green lights dancing above you, it’s something out of this world. I got a little emotional but also trigger happy. I couldn’t stop taking photos – admittedly, the majority of them didn’t come out very well, really blurry and I was slightly disappointed. But that’s okay!

As Northern Lights chasing season is now here, part of this post is to hopefully help you not make the same mistakes I did. Just remember, I’m no expert, I’ve just had the great privilege of seeing the Northern Lights a few times that my lessons might be useful for you. So let’s get started.

ps. I’ve previously spoken about how to chase the northern lights so there’ll be some overlaps.

What are the Northern Lights?

The Sun’s solar wind gives off electrically charged particles which when collided with the Earth’s atmosphere, create the beautiful phenomenon we come to know as Aurora Borealis. The geomagnetic activity is rated on the KP rating (which is between 0 and 9). The higher the number, the higher your likelihood to see it further south of the poles.

Example: is to see it from Tromsø, you need a kp1 rating whereas Stavanger would need between a kp4 or kp5 (also known as a G1 storm).

The most common is seeing the “Green Lady”. This happens when the particles collide with oxygen in the atmosphere and other colours like purple or violet happen during the collision with nitrogen. The altitude is also a factor in what colours can be seen. SCIENCE, it’s amazing. I quite enjoy reading various online sources so you might enjoy this article from Space.com.

Preparing for your adventure

Do your research

• • Go during the right season (Northern Hemisphere Winter)

This isn’t to shame anyone but in order to see the Northern Lights, the best time would be during darkness, roughly between September to Mid April. During the Northern Hemisphere summer, it doesn’t get dark the further north you go. From what I’ve understood, the best time to visit would be the dead of winter, so temperatures will be freezing. But apparently, the cold temperatures help to reduce clouds in the sky.

• • Social Media Groups:

A great thing about our virtually connected world is that there are so many resources to use. My personal favourite is to join Aurora chasing specific groups. They are a wealth of knowledge, discussion and inspiration. Ideally, join location centric groups to maximise your chances. For Iceland, I liked using these two groups: Aurora Hunters Iceland and Aurora Iceland. They share plenty of insights on locations or how to read the charts and KP ratings.

Dress appropriately

You’re going to be spending a lot of time outside, in the cold… waiting. You might not be freezing to start off with but after standing stationary for long periods of time, you’ll probably start feeling it! The last thing you would want after all your research and preparation is to watch the show, cold and miserable.

Wear a beanie, warm gloves, a proper jacket and underlayers… maybe bring a warm snuggly blanket and some hot cocoa/beers to watch the show! If you are going to be photographing the lights, definitely wear gloves. Basics, I know but I didn’t think too much of it and forgot my gloves more than once.

Read the forecasts

• • Follow the weather forecast

Like I mentioned previously, you need a dark sky to see her dancing. It would also be really helpful if the sky is clear! Clouds in the sky will block your view of the Green Lady and if there’s too much cloud coverage, you might not see her at all. It happened plenty of times to us while in Iceland – being chased by cloud coverage! While it may not be the most accurate, if you check a few sources, it could be a good gauge. I prefer using yr.no to check my weather forecast but you could also use the weather app on your smartphone.

• • Follow Aurora Forecasting websites

By far, one of the most important tools to have. By the time the sunsets, I’m already looking at the forecasts for the night. Iceland is such a famous destination to see the Northern Lights, there are so many websites you can use. These are a couple that I used simultaneously.

1. 1. 1. Icelandic MET office.
      2. Aurora Forecast.
      3. Northern Lights Iceland.

Most Importantly: Have fun. Hope but don’t expect

Of course, after all this prep work, you desperately want to see the Northern Lights. But it is important to remember not to expect to see the Northern Lights. You can hope for the best and enjoy the company of the people you’re seeing it with. It is all part of the adventure. Waiting to see her only makes it just that bit more exciting when she finally shows up!

Photographing the Northern Lights

I’m definitely not a pro photographer by any means but this is what worked for me:

Try to keep your ISO relatively low

This depended on my surroundings – if there were any light sources near me. I tried to keep my ISO as low as possible but felt like I had the best result with around ISO 2000. I know, I know it is quite high and you are risking capturing grainy pictures. A lot of people suggest starting at about ISO 800 and playing around with that to suit you.

Exposure

The lights were moving really slow so having a longer exposure helps capture it best. If they start moving really quickly, try shorter exposure times. Majority of my photos were taken with 10 second exposure time. I found that yielded the best results for me. Experiment with it, you might be surprised or prefer another setting

Fastest aperture

My lens goes down to f2.8 which is what I kept it at. Anything higher didn’t give me the desired results.

Set it in Manual!

Before this trip, I bought a new camera and didn’t get to practice with it much prior to leaving. So it took me a while to learn how to use the Manual function (late night youtube videos). I ended up trying to shot in Autofocus for an hour and gave up. It kept trying to find something to focus on and it was unbelievably frustrating. What I eventually ended up learning was how to use the ∞ function. I also focused either on the moon or the brightest star in the sky to focus my photograph.

Having an object in the foreground of the image helped make it significantly easier to focus the image quickly.

Bring a tripod

Before the trip, I couldn’t find my tripod and had to go without on. It was a mission and a half trying to find something to set my camera up on to focus on the lights. I used the rental car, our wallets/gloves, used a farm post to position my camera. I got really creative with it. Having a tripod will exponentially make photographing the Northern Lights that much easier. Trust me. Even a cheap tripod would be better than no tripod.

Spare batteries

If you’re going to be chasing the Aurora for hours, it would be helpful to bring fully charged and spare batteries. Your battery power goes down really quickly when exposed to cold temperatures. Store your batteries in your innermost jacket pocket to keep them warm before changing them out.

Remote control or Timer

If you have a remote controller to control your camera, that works! But if you’re like me and you don’t want to spend extra money on accessories you may not use again, use your cameras’ self-timer. Set it for 2 or 5 seconds so it won’t capture the slight movement of your camera when you push the shutter button.

There we have it, a quick rundown on useful ways I found to catch and photograph the Northern lights. It’s a bit of work and waiting around, hoping she dances but it’s definitely worth the effort. All the best on your adventures!