Photographing the Northern Lights is a challenging, yet highly rewarding experience. Here we take a look at the how's, where's, why's and when's to give you the very best chance of returning from your aurora adventures with a series of pictures to be proud of. The Northern Lights are one of nature's great phenomena: a spectacular, jaw-dropping light show of greens, reds, yellows, blues and violets dancing across the clear night sky. For many, just seeing the aurora is enough to fulfil a lifetime's ambition, but to successfully photograph the Northern Lights is to ensure you'll keep that memory alive forever.
Looking back through history there are many myths and legends surrounding the origins of the Aurora Borealis. The Sami people of northern Scandinavia believed that the lights were the souls of the departed, leaving earth for the last time. The Finns once thought that a magical fox, spraying snow into the sky with a sweep of its tail, was the cause of this mysterious, ethereal spectacle. In the Canadian Yukon , Eskimos believed that the lights were the dancing spirits of animals, or torches lit by the dead.
The scientific explanation is a little less romantic of course, but just as fascinating nonetheless. One of several astronomical phenomena, collectively known as Aurora Polaris polar lights , the Northern Lights are caused when a solar explosion or flare ejects a cloud of gas from the sun. Carried by strong solar winds, some of these clouds eventually reach earth - a journey that takes around three days - and collide with our planet's magnetic field, creating currents of charged particles.
As these particles travel past the Earth's magnetic polar regions they in turn collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the upper atmosphere, creating the dazzling display we know as the Northern Lights. Sadly the Northern Lights are rarely seen in the British Isles, unless you travel to the far north of Scotland, but there are a number of destinations, some of which are just a short flight from the UK, where its possible to see the Aurora at its very best.
The Nordic countries of Sweden , Norway , Finland , Iceland and southern Greenland are all prime spots for hunting the Aurora, or for those preferring to travel further afield, Canada also offers superb chances to see and photograph the lights. The long nights of the cold Arctic winter offer the best chance to see the Aurora, and dark, cloudless skies make the perfect conditions to view and photograph the Northern Lights at their spectacular best.
