Northern Lights!

[Givenup2026]

I had never seen them before, so beautiful!

Thanks indeed for those stunning photos. I am in the North West and it was gloomy weather all day yesterday. For all of you who showed your photos they are amazing and you should be photographer's as a living. They are the best photos I have ever seen and I can see now how special the phenomena is. Once again thanks indeed.

Birmingham.

I was given this for Christmas - so guess my experience

Darn it, I got the alert and then totally forgot about it and went to bed. Couldn’t sleep either, so I could easily have gone out for a look.

@Boolabus I’m signed up to Aurorawatchuk on X. Good news is that the alert seems to be continuing into tonight - if only the sky stays clear! 🤞

Northern Scotland last night 😊

One of the many upsides of NE Scotland. We get to see it often. Cameras make it looks soooo much better than what you can see yourself but I I love going out and seeing the Milky Way too.

Weird, isn't it?

Now that I think about it my cat asked to go in and out a few times

Hmm yeah, I have to say all the pics all over the internet today/Twitter/Instagram, and the pics sent into the news, looked like dayglo highlighter pens! Many people claiming on Twitter and Instagram and facebook etc that they didn't use a filter.

I was like 'oh come ON! They didn't look like this!! (The first 3 pics.)

They looked more like the last pic here. Fair enough, some people saw them (I did,) but they were quite dull and pale, and not those sharp, bright, dayglo, highlighter colours. Why do so many people try and make out that they saw the super bright colours? Do people really believe they saw it like their photos present? Is there a weird groupthink thing going on? Or Emporers New Clothes?

(Not aimed at anyone on here.)

I have seen the northern lights 3 times in the past couple of years now, and they have not looked like the ones in the first 3 photos (with the naked eye.) As I said, they looked much more like the ones in pic 4.

I’m so jealous of everyone’s gorgeous photos! I went all the way to Iceland and still didn’t see them….annoyingly my sister sent me amazing pictures from where she lives in Ireland last night.

Sadly it was too misty and cloudy here last night to see anything😭

It’s likely true that they didn’t use a filter to get those photos though. The phones allow a longer exposure so the brightness stacks up and any old snap with your phone will come out just like those super bright dayglo highlighter pen pictures, if it’s a strong aurora like it was last night.

If you’re in a really dark sky area, with a lot less noise pollution, it’ll look brighter too.

But also you can hold up your phone and basically use it as a viewing portal, even without taking pictures. You can watch through the screen as it enables you to see the colours more brightly, and watch them swirling like you’re holding up a little window. And then you can tune into them more and they’re easier to spot.

So it feels like you’re really seeing them that brightly, as you’re watching them move, and most of those pics are just point and snap, no fancy enhancing settings beyond just phone night mode. I’m sure there are some where someone’s tweaked it but mostly that’s how they just come out.

Hmmm I don't believe anyone could see anything very impressive with their own eyes. And they only 'dance' when it's a time lapse video so I don't believe that either. The moon halo a couple of weeks ago was impressive though,

Well you may not believe it but really bright aurora, the sort of displays seen from.places like Canada, Iceland and Norway really can be very impressive and the active displays certainly can dance and be very animated...

When we saw them a couple of years ago in the uk we could absolutely see a bright pink trail across the sky with the naked eye for a while.

What I saw last night was about a quarter of the sky bright intense pink, about a quarter luminous green in gently moving horizontal stripes, the rest dark and starlit. No phone needed, no exaggeration needed.

Completely unexpected and one of the most deeply moving natural phenomena I have ever experienced.

The ones I saw in Iceland definitely danced and you could see with naked eye, fancier looking through the phone though

In lapland we saw very obvious swirling lights with the naked eye. Very cool. But the strong colours only appear looking through a camera (no filter needed, it is just how the camera processes them). The photos I've seen from the UK mostly have much less clear patterns than our photos from Lapland. I assume they are often using a longer exposure to pick up enough light.

I definitely watch a band of pale green dance across a pink backdrop last night, and I hadn’t even had a glass of wine!

No chance here, its pissing down.

cloudy here tonight but took some pics as i'd read that apparently this can show up what you can't see. Gad I did - beautiful purple blue and greens. strange as hell not being able to actually see the colours but it showing up in the photo. feel a bit like the victorians did when cameras were invented, what is this magic haha!

So yeah, so most of the time it's not showing on the photos what people are actually seeing with the naked eye then? As I (and a few others) have said .... What people have been seeing is much paler... They're still seeing them, but they're not like on the photos they have been posting.

Someone who says it picks it up brighter/richer through the camera on the phone is not seeing it with the naked eye. They're seeing it through a camera trick. It may as well be a filter.

If people want to post these photos that's fine, it's a free country, but I wish people would stop presenting the photos as if this is what they saw. Because for the vast vast majority of people, it wasn't. It all feels a bit deceptive, and quite honestly, it feels that many people are kidding themselves...

fecking raining and cloudy here 😡

I have some great pictures of the craters of the moon and a fuzzy one of Saturn’s rings that I took through a telescope. Still saw them. Couldn’t have seen them as well without the telescope.

Everyone posting the photos they took knows that they come out brighter (usually) in photos than by the naked eye, it’s not a big secret. And when you’re in a dark area with less light pollution it’s still impressive to look at for many people. They’re not setting out to trick you - do you think they should try to adjust all the photos they took to far dimmer than the photos come out?

Being able to see the much brighter colours through your phone screen is one of the reasons more people are able to experience the northern lights now, as well as it being quite an active period at the moment. I’m sorry if it’s underwhelming for you but it really is exciting for lots of other people.

They absolutely do dance! I’ve seen them several times in Norway within the Arctic Circle and it was the most astonishing and emotional thing I’ve ever seen! Just watching the colours and movement- not through a camera - is a truly incredible natural phenomenon.

No cloud in Wilts, but no lights either!

Usually when I see them they just look like clouds until I take a photo on night mode (so long exposure) and that picks up the colours but I have a couple of times seen the colours with the naked eye and movement (not fast dancing but slowly moving and changing shape). Never as bright as in those photos though, not even when I saw them in Lapland once.