3/5/2023 0 Comments Where to see northern lights![]() ![]() Between 4am and 5pm there is generally too much daylight to see the aurora – exceptions are the darkest months of the year and higher latitudes such Svalbard, where it is dark 24/7 from mid-Nov to end of Jan.The strongest lights tend to appear between 9pm and 2am, though the best sightings often occur between 11pm and midnight.November through to February offer the darkest skies and longer evenings for maximum sky-gazing.Spring and autumn generally provide more stable weather conditions and milder temperatures plus there is greater aurora activity around the equinoxes. ![]() While they occur year round they are weaker than sunlight and therefore sightings aren’t possible from May to July and for most of August. The aurora borealis are potentially visible under dark skies from late August to mid-April preferably under a clear, cloudless sky. Interestingly, the northern and southern lights, or aurora australis, occur simultaneously but the inverse seasons mean they generally aren’t visible at the same time. They usually occur between 60 and 75 degrees of latitude, which covers northern parts of Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Alaska and Russia as well as all of Iceland. These magnetic fields create auroral ovals around the top and bottom of our planet which move and distort as the earth rotates and solar flare activity increases. This occurs around the Polar Regions where those magnetic fields converge. The northern lights and their counterpart in the southern hemisphere appear when highly charged solar wind particles flowing from the sun collide with air molecules in the earth’s atmosphere transferring their energy into light. It’s said the term was first coined by Galileo in 1623 and is derived from ‘Aurora’, the goddess of the dawn and ‘Boreas’, the northern wind personified. The northern lights are also known as the aurora borealis, meaning light of dawn. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |