Anyone seen the Northern Lights?

[RhodaCamel]

It is my ultimate dream to see the Northern Lights.
I know they are known to be a bit elusive and a trip to find them can be a bit hit and miss, ideally I would like to try to catch them in Norway as, for some reason I just love the look of the place and have always felt a connection to the country, so even if I don’t get to see them I will hopefully enjoy the trip.
Have any of you seen the Northern Lights? Where did you go and at what time of the year?

Not sure why the last one didn’t post.

@PearTreeParty I’d assess how far away from light pollution your sites are. Take something warm to lie on, unless provided. If there are two of you, look back to back. They can appear anywhere, often behind your back!

@Damntheman luckily there were no clouds when we saw them but I can imagine how people would get confused on a cloudy night and they hadn't done much research.

I disagree re photos - the ones I took inspired my in laws to book a trip this January! Camera was set up before we left the UK so it was only a case of pressing a button every 5 mins or so. We were out for 2 hours or so. I got some with me and my other half in as well, to prove that we weren't lying about it haha.

Never seen them. Spent too much of my life in light-polluted cities.

Sign up to aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/ if you want an alert when there's a shot at seeing them from home. (This is quite rare). Sods law, when there've been alerts it's always been clouded over for me.

I’m in scotland and have seen them, absolutely amazing!

I've seen them a few times, can't remember how many, as I regularly went to finnish lapland in the winter as a child. My granddad's farm is out in the sticks so little light pollution to ruin it.

Following

@crunched, What is the cruise of Norway and artic circle like at this time of the year, are the seas rough? really cold? little daylight? Is it a small cruise ship.

Would absolutely love to do it, but couldn't handle rough seas !

A few miles from Banff, in March

Saw them in Aberdeen. The sky was like the inside of a mussel shell, but moving. Lived there seven years and saw the lights once. Good luck finding them x

Bloody hell @VetOnCall, the is amazing. We were in Banff during the summer, hubby was golfing and a bear strolled onto the green and plonked itself down in front of one of the tees. . What an amazing part of the world.

Yes, in Hellifield North Yorkshire.

I live in Norway, so I see them regularly. No guarantees, but a good time to try to see them would be February/March. Go to Tromsø and join one of the tours. They bus tourists out at night and drive around to find the lights. The bus guides have people in different areas who report if they lights are there and they follow the aurora forecast.

I grew up in Orkney. I remember my dad waking me in the middle of the night so we could watch them together.

Hi
Came back from an 11 night Hurtigruten cruise end of November into early December
Main point is that the sun is at the end of an 11 years solar flare cycle so chances are slim to see lights.
We did once we were up in the artic.
They were not strong and you do need a good camera set up to get the full colours, if they are present otherwise is just a general green.
The ship was great and the food outstanding considering the conditions, staff were all lovely.
On the way back we sailed through a hurricane force storm, we were sliding up and down our beds trying to sleep.
Norway is bonkers expensive, the trips they offer on board (husky sledding etc, £250 pp.) are super expensive, but others like the city walks you can do on your own
We got off at every port, just to stretch our legs in the case of 15 minute stops, other ports you had longer.
The towns can have very few residents but be surprisingly full of shops
Other small stops are a small supermarket, a church and a museum.
If the ship has lost time due to weather, the captain cuts out some port stops to make up time, thus pre booked trips are cancelled (you get your money back)
The different types of snow was rather interesting to see.
The trip was on my bucket list and I’m glad i did it, but had I known
I could do the trip one way, I would have, if money is no object and you want to do all the trips you can then go up and back.

I'm going to Iceland at the end of April.

I think you can see them anytime but varying intensity.

Not expecting to see much.

Amazing to hear how many people have seen them in the UK. And wow to the Canada ones.

@Thesuzle - thanks for the insider knowledge, interesting!

Yes in the cockpit of a 747.

Amazing ❤️

Someone upthread asked where we stay in Scotland to see them so often. North Aberdeenshire, see them all the time, cold clear evenings plus alerts on phone means it's easy enough! Feel a bit bad it's on so many bucket lists and it's so regular for us!

@RhodaCamel I saw the northern lights the week before Christmas in 2016 on a trip to Tromso and the following year my parents did the same trip and saw them too.
We went with this company. www.nordicexperience.co.uk/norway/winter/northern-lights-experience

And did a separate trip with Guide Gunnar to see the northern lights guidegunnar.no/

He has a blog where you can read his rating of the lights on various trips so it might give you an idea of best time to go to optimise chance of seeing them. guidegunnar.no/ac/2019

It was an amazing out of the world experience and would recommend it to anyone!! Any more info please ask - we hired some clothing out there so cheaper than buying in uk

I've seen them a few times as I live in Scotland.

The most spectacular was almost 20 years ago and there was a massive geomagnetic storm which lasted about a fortnight- for several of those nights there were reds and purples in amongst the greens.

Saw them on the boat trip that goes from Reykjavik. They have warm suits you can borrow, loos on board plus a bar which serves rum hot chocolate.

We used the Glendale app mentioned up thread. I also booked for the end week of March going by the equinox dates and moon. First trip out all we saw was a small smudge of green in the sky. We went again the next night as the forecast drastically improved and it was incredible. You didn't need a camera to see them, it was waves of bright green with purple fringing. At one point it looked like green spotlights going off in front of us, and then it snaked around the sky, exactly like the old snake game on Nokia phones. Once we got back to the harbour it didn't look that impressive, you definitely need it to be dark to get the full experience.

We went to Iceland in feb 2019 and saw them four times which was just amazing. They were green and flickering just like I had imagined. We also saw them from the plane in the way home.

I saw them in Iceland on September. Weirdly I saw them as white/grey and my husband saw them as green...