If you missed the chance of catching the Northern Lights last night – don’t worry. They’re set to return tonight.
Last night, Horsham residents captured the moment as bright pinks, purples and greens splashed across the night sky.
The Northern Lights are set to light up the skies all across the UK again tonight (providing the skies are clear).
What are the Northern Lights?
The Northern Lights are caused by atoms with electric charges, called charged particles. The lights appear when these charged particles are shot out from the sun and hit gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. In this instance, the Sun is experiencing an extreme geomagnetic storm, which is sending out solar winds with those particles into the solar system. We see different colours in the sky when the various gases in the Earth’s atmosphere are energised by the charged particles.
The two most common gases in the Earth’s atmosphere are oxygen and nitrogen. Oxygen atoms glow green – the colour most often seen in the Northern Lights, while nitrogen atoms emit purple, blue and pink.
Whilst the Northern Lights are expected again this evening, early indications are that it may not reach the ‘extreme’ of last night with activity declining.
Weather conditions are ideal with clear skies but it needs to be dark, so you’ll need to wait until at least 22:30 BST. At this time of year, when nights are shorter, 23:30 into the early hours of the morning is when the night is darkest.
How do I get the best photo of them?
Given the lights are not expected to be as bright as they were on Friday, you may need to use some camera tricks to get the most out of your photo if you are heading out this evening. Hers are some tips for getting the best photo:
- Switch off the flash
- Set the camera to night mode, and adjust the slider to three to five seconds
- Keep the camera as steady as possible or use a tripod
All phone users will want to play with the exposure to capture the best of the lights – most phones will bring up this option by tapping the screen when in the camera app. Some more recent phone models may have even more advanced camera settings, which allow for shutter speed and the length of exposure to be adjusted.
Setting a long exposure time can capture the dance of the lights, but you will have to keep the phone still to avoid blurring.
The last time we had an extreme geomagnetic storm hit Earth was in 2003, so Friday’s event was rare. We are much more used to seeing the Northern Lights limited to northern parts of the UK.
