A viewing of the Northern Lights is high on the list of many travellers and our hopes were high on our recent four day trip to Iceland. Sadly just being at high northern latitudes does not guarantee a sighting, much depends on the weather, cloud cover, solar activity and the absence of background light. There are however things that you can do to ensure that you maximise the chance. While you can not control weather, clouds and solar activity you can arrange a trip to an area of darkness away from the influence of city lights. Before you book check on the likelihood of a display. The Icelandic Met Office issues a three day aurora forecast.
The forecast will show the presence of cloud at various heights in the sky. Most tourist go straight to the number shown as the aurora forecast in the top right hand corner. This gives you an indication of the chance of seeing a display and how active the display will be. You don’t necessarily need a high score, indeed in Iceland the score of 3 is the most common and scores above 5 are rare. Remember the number is only a guide. We saw a short display with an aurora forecast of 3. Be prepared to give it time even if all the indicators are good, a display can build slowly and timings can never be guaranteed.
Don’t expect the aurora display you observe to be as vibrant or colourful as it appears in many photographs. Some people can be underwhelmed by what they see and there is a perfectly sound biological reason why. The retina at the back of the eye is made up of two types of cells called rods and cones. Rods are responsible for our vision when light intensity is low however they are not capable of colour vision. This is why it is not very easy to tell the colour of an object if there isn’t much light. Cones on the other hand are capable of colour vision but can only function at higher light intensities. So if you are trying to observe the Northern Lights in an area of darkness only the rods in the eye are functioning therefore you dont see colour very well. To see the colours clearly you need a camera.
You need to set the camera to MANUAL mode. This enables you to control the cameras settings. Set the shutter speed to between 10 and 20 seconds, a little trial and error here to find the optimum. The aperture should be set to around 3.5 and the ISO to 16oo. It is also a good idea to set the timer to a two second delay. To use such long exposures you really need a tripod to hold the camera steady. Having said that I forget mine and had to spend the evening trying to hold my camera as steady as possible in the freezing cold. I managed to take some pictures but they were out of focus due to the camera shake. You live and learn, the next time a tripod will be at the top of the list!
Many smart phone cameras do not let you alter the exposure but there are apps available to help you photograph the Northern Lights. A search in the App Store should show you the possibilities. Having not tried any I can not make any sort of recommendation.