10/11/2024
Thereās a lot of hype about the aurora borealis this year and with all the hype comes loads of photo and video posts and even news stories all about what folks are seeing and what folks are hoping to see and with the hype and the sightings comes speculation and suspicion about what we can see with our eyes versus what cameras pick up.
I was considering not opening my pie hole on these matters but after reading a lot of skepticism surrounding Aurora photos and the colors of the aurora and wether or not one can see such amazing aurora with just your eyeballs, Iām going to leave this neat little chart here that explains a bit about the aurora borealis and the different colors.
Iām also going to elaborate on the topic of whether or not we humans can see brilliant colors, movement and screaming bright auroras with our eyes. As a former northern lights tour guide and aurora photography expert (yes an expert in that field!) I can tell you that the stuff you see in photos and time lapse and real time video is NOT ALWAYS OVERLY EDITED.
Yes, a camera sensor has much better light sensitivity than human eyeballs ever could (unless we were someday equipped with robot eyes) and so with the use of digital cameras the aurora colors will appear very vivid from a camera even when they are hardly visible with our eyes. There is no photographic trickery in it, itās just technology being better at picking up with the sun and the earthās magnetic field are laying down up in space. To be a skeptic about the reality of seeing such colors and vividness in the aurora is something a person who has never witnessed a massive, strong aurora display right over their heads would stick with. That is until such naysayers actually do witness such an event with their own eyes.
Is it very rare to see such aurora displays with our own eyes? This totally depends on where you are trying to watch them from. If you are only trying to see such magnificent aurora from say the Seattle area, you will probably never see it in your lifetime, no matter how out of this world the aurora predictions are on any given day. There are few key factors here. For one, the further south from the Aurora Oval one is, the less spectacular the aurora may appear, usually. What is the Aurora Oval? Itās an imperfect oval created by the earths magnetic field that sits over both the northern and southern polar regions, itās where the sunās charged particles hit the magnetic field and combined with various gases in our atmosphere such as oxygen and nitrogen the aurora borealis is created. In the northern hemisphere places such as Fairbanks, Alaska, Iceland, Lofoten, Norway and Ivalo, Finland sit almost directly underneath the aurora oval. This should then go without saying why you see such amazing aurora photos and videos coming from places in or around those locations. The aurora oval also dips low in certain places making it that imperfect oval I mentioned. What this means is, where the over may be stretched out more it is possible to see good aurora in places a bit further south. Places like Minnesota and Montana for instance are in a good spot. As the earth turns under its own imperfect magnetic field throughout the night the aurora can be seen in places close to those parts of the oval so long as the solar activity is strong enough to send a s**t ton of charged particles hurling through space at speeds you canāt begin to fathom. The stronger the CME (coronal mass ejection) the greater the chances of seeing aurora further south of the old aurora oval.
To the skeptics and naysayers of seeing brilliant aurora borealis with your own eyes I say, you just havenāt spent enough time in locations where the aurora can be seen frequently. You absolutely can and will see amazing aurora moving above you and all over the sky if you are in the right place, at the right time, with the right conditions. Seattle is usually not even the right place to see such aurora displays. Seattle is just not a good place to hope to see such aurora activity ever. We were super lucky to have had an unusually rare night of aurora over Seattle on May 10, 2024. Those auroras were seen with the naked eye. Iām not expecting to see something like that here in Seattle for the rest of days to be honest. I do expect to see that kind of mind bending aurora when Tiffany Goudey and I go to our cabins in Fairbanks or when I lead a Finland tour for my friends at Dressler Detours next March 2025.
You want to see mind bending northern lights? Go north!
Please feel free to share my humble wisdomš
Greg
