You Can See the Northern Lights Better With Your Phone
Besides their stunning appearance, the appeal of the northern lights also stems from their unpredictability. Even with the most advanced technology, it can be difficult for forecasters to pinpoint exactly when and where the colorful images will be visible in the sky just before the show begins. On top of that, there’s the weather and the fact that too many clouds can turn what should be a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle into hours spent in the bitter cold for no reason.
While there’s nothing you can do about the weather, if you find yourself in a place where the northern lights are forecast to be visible but you can’t see anything (or maybe you can barely make out anything in the distance), your phone can help, by according to an expert from the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) .
How to use your phone to see the Northern Lights
To be clear, you can’t just go outside on a clear night anywhere in the world and take pictures of the northern lights with your phone. This only works if a potential aurora has been forecast in your area or slightly north of it.
Advances in smartphone technology have improved their ability to capture images of the northern lights, according to Brent Gordon, SWPC’s Space Weather Services Division Manager. “With some of the recent events, we’ve seen some amazing aurora images as far away as south Texas and even a couple in Central America – things that the human eye can’t see,” he said at a media briefing in May. 10.
No special skills required: just point your phone at the sky and take a photo. “You might be surprised when you look at this image later—there might be a little treat in there for you,” Gordon says.
However, the goal here is not to take high-level photographs of the aurora. In this case, your phone acts more like a telescope than a camera, helping you see things you might not otherwise be able to see.
Why can phones see the northern lights but we can’t? Simply put, “cell phones capture light much better than our eyes,” Gordon says. “Because they are much more attuned to visible wavelengths than our eyes, this is how we see these images of the aurora so far south.”