Right Time, Right Place
Timing is everything
If you put yourself in the right location at the right time, and your camera is ready, you can capture something quite beautiful. This might be said of any type of photography, but it’s especially true when shooting something as elusive and ephemeral as the aurora. Thanks to satellites and forecasting tools, our chances of seeing the aurora are profoundly better than they were just a few years ago. But successful timing is still determined by several other variables.
Solar cycle
More auroral displays occur during the maximum of the 11-year solar cycle and the likelihood is also greater when active sunspots are directed toward Earth. The northern lights may appear at any time, but your best chance is in the peak years of the solar max. NASA expects Solar Cycle 25 to peak around 2022.
Season
Aurora is active all year, but you need darkness at night to see the displays, so don’t expect to see the northern lights if you’re planning a summer trip to the Arctic. Circumpolar destinations feature spectacular aurora shots in their marketing, and many summer tourists arrive with the impression that it’s a year-round phenomenon. In northern regions under the auroral oval, viewing season is from fall until spring. If you’re watching for the aurora in the southern hemisphere, the opposite timing applies. People in Tasmania and Southern New Zealand are most likely to see aurora displays from May to August.
We tend to associate aurora with cold and winter, yet the warmer shoulder seasons are very agreeable times to watch the northern lights. Shoulder months are also excellent timing for aurora photography trips because they coincide with equinox. When I started to seriously photograph the northern lights I was pleasantly surprised to find April and September could be so productive.
Climate
The northern lights aren’t affected by temperature and weather, but photographers are. It may be dark in the Yukon in January, but shooting in –30° C plus an extra 10 degrees of wind chill comes with its challenges. It may seem like good timing to shoot aurora in Iceland in November, but clouds and rain often prove otherwise. When I’m planning aurora shoots, I study the weather charts in various destination to see which months have clearer, more stable weather. If you can travel on short notice, you may be able to capitalize on a good weather window in an otherwise typically cloudy month.
Landscape
Your timing also determines the look of the landscape you’re shooting. Are you looking for bright, snowy foregrounds, or do you want reflections in open water? Do you want a moonlit scene, or are you tired of washed-out aurora caused by the moon? The tide is a factor at some amazing coastal locations in Norway and Iceland. Mixing night and day by photographing the aurora during twilight can also produce beautiful results, but this makes for very long hours and may be more due to luck.
Weather
Once you’re in the field, sky conditions are the main consideration when it comes to shooting aurora. It’s helpful to monitor temperature, precipitation, wind and other weather variables to better plan your shoot, but ultimately none of it matters if you can’t see the stars. I spend many hours monitoring weather forecasts, understanding local weather patterns, and relocating to find windows of clear sky. If your geomagnetic latitude is good, your chances of shooting the aurora will improve significantly by studying weather forecasts and gaining an understanding of local weather patterns.
Time of day
It’s not enough to pick a good year, the right season and the best landscape – you also need to shoot during optimal hours for the aurora. The lights tend to peak around midnight, but this varies depending on where you are relative to magnetic midnight. In Alaska and Yukon, the optimal hours are between 10:30 pm and 2:30 am. In Iceland and Norway the best hours skew a bit earlier, between 9:30 pm and 1:30 am. Regardless of where you are, staking out the lights is at least a four-hour commitment. For photography, I find that auroral displays are usually better before magnetic midnight. After peak hours they often disperse, and fuzzy aurora doesn’t photograph well.