Northern Lights (aurora borealis) viewing recommendations

[zhead]

Hi all,

Me and a few mates want to go Reykjavik for a city break in Jan and wondered if any fellow PHers know of some good locations / times to try and catch a sighting of the Northern Lights. I've done the usual google and wiki things but nowhere has a solid recommendation or indeed a lot of tales of if this is really that astonishing to see.

Does anyone have any tales / recommendations (including any for the weekend in the city )

Cheers,

Neil

[Finlandia]

Best locations to see the Northern lights are North of the Arctic circle, but you can see them quite a bit further South too, a cold night, -10 or colder should be good.

[Rav]

Seen them many years ago in Finland. The place was called Rovenemi some miles north of Oulu.
Absolutly fantastic.

Hotel thermometer showed -25 degrees outside temp. I will never say im cold again :-)

[hogfisch]

I spent a month in Iceland during August / September many years ago on expedition. Location was at Thorsmork national park, camped between 2 valley glaciers. In the entire month I was there, no sign of the Lights. On my last evening in Iceland, when the expedition group reconvened in Reykjavik , the entire night sky was lit up in greens and purples. Amazing to see and glad I had the opportunity.

From what I experienced, Reykjavik is pretty expensive (about £5 a half litre beer compared to £2.20ish in the UK at the time), cheap end hotels / guest houses around £100. However, what a place to go and well worth the outlay - must sees are really the Blue Lagoon and if you get the chance to get outside Reykjavik, try and visit Gulfoss waterfall / Geysir and some of the glaciers in the south of Iceland.

[Puggit]

Further North and away from light pollution the better - you need luck too, it's all down to solar activity...

You don't really need a recommendation, just common sense!

[Le TVR]

Reykjavik in January should be OK even if its outside the Artic Circle. Cold clear nights are best BUT you want to be way outside the city to avoid any light pollution.

Best I have ever seen was from the top of a mountain near Tromso in Norway, utterly startling effect!

[tonyvid]

Puggit said:

Further North and away from light pollution the better - you need luck too, it's all down to solar activity...

You don't really need a recommendation, just common sense!

And the common sense to leave it a couple of years as the solar activity is at its minimum(really minimum..)right now so your chances are not good. Have a search on the P+P over the last 6 months as there was a thread recently.

[Hedders]

I have seen the northern lights in Scotland. I watched shifting patterns and changing colours for about ten minutes at about 2:00AM. It was extremely cool!

I also saw some very similar effects in broad daylight over the Desert in Southern California. I figure that must have been something different, but similar.

[Cheeky Jim]

My Parents live in Shetland and they see them reasonably regularly.

[benny.c]

I think you just have to be lucky. I've been up at the Arctic Circle 3 times (21 days total) and never seen a fekkin thing. Cold (0 to -24) and clear, and no joy

[matchmaker]

Cheeky Jim said:

My Parents live in Shetland and they see them reasonably regularly.

So did I when I lived there. Awesome!

[tonyvid]

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[RemaL]

going to lapland with the family ont he 21st Dec so this thread is very handy