Viewing Guide

Here are some tips to help you see the aurora. You can see auroras from most places in the world. The only place where auroras hardly ever occur is at the equator, however they still have been seen there too. Some places have auroras less frequently than others, and this is when if you are prepared with the Free ADEC Aurora Alerting System and the following information, you can dramatically increase your chances of seeing an aurora.

If you are doing everything correctly, you'll find that 90% of the time you get alerted, you will see an aurora (i.e. pretty good odds).

• City/Town Living (Light Pollution)
• Where to Look
• What to Look For
• Dark Adapting
• Location
• Time
• Moonlight
• Weather
• Alert Destination

City/Town Living (Light Pollution)

If you live in a city/town or near a city, then light pollution is likely to be a problem. Light pollution is caused by street, house and vehicle lighting reflecting off dust and moisture in the atmosphere. For a given location, some nights are better than others.

Light pollution gives a background glow to the sky, which wipes out the fainter stars and also auroras. Light pollution tends to have an olive green glow, where as an aurora tends to be teal green, so they can be commonly mistaken for each other.

If you live on the edge of a city, light pollution is likely to be less than in the center, and some cities are better than others.

As auroras mainly appear to the North of a location, it's important that the location you choose has little light pollution to the North. If you live in the West of a city, you'd probably head West out of the city to get a better view of an aurora, however you wouldn't head South (because you'd be viewing to the North over the city).

To get an idea of the degree of light pollution you have and the effect on viewing auroras, count the number of stars on a clear night and use the following table:

Number Of Stars	Aurora Visible?
≤10	You have bad light pollution, and will need to find a better location for aurora viewing
10 to 30	You have medium light pollution, and will only see the stronger auroras from this location
30 to 300	You have reasonable light pollution, and will see most auroras from this location
more than you can count	Congratulations, you have little or no light pollution, and aurora viewing will be fantastic

Use the above table to figure out if it is possible to see from your location, and if not, find a better location nearby.

Where to Look

The aurora is like an oval donut. When you are under the ring, you will see the aurora. The ring is centered around the magnetic north pole (located in Northern Canada) and it expands and contracts. So typically most people will see the aurora looking to the north (NW - NE) just above the horizon, when it's close to their alerting threshold. When it's higher than their alerting threshold, the aurora can be seen overhead and East, West and South.

Because the aurora occurs so high in the atmosphere, it is possible to see an aurora happening to the North many miles from your location.

What to Look For

Auroras happen in 3 colors, quite commonly all at once. The 3 colors are Teal Green, Pinkish Red, and Blue. These colors are essentially fixed, and any deviation is caused by the colors visually mixing together. Teal green is the most common color that is seen.

Auroras can vary from a faint static glow in the distance, to bands and rays moving across the sky at a fast speed (covering the sky in 10 seconds for instance), to pulsating aurora (pulses every few seconds).

Freqeuntly a faint patten looking like angel wings can be seen from overhead when the aurora is directly overhead.

Dark Adapting

When you move from bright light to look at the dark night, your eyes take time to adapt to the dark. After a couple of minutes, you should be able to see the aurora without any difficulty. However, things always look better the longer you're in the dark.

Typically your best vision is after about 20 minutes in the dark. Light (and flashlights), can destroy your night vision, causing you to have to adjust to the dark again. A red flashlight (or any red light) has minimal impact on your night vision, but white light should be avoided.

Location

When you receive an aurora alert, you have limited time to get to your viewing location, so it helps to have scouted a viewing location out beforehand.

When looking for a location, find somewhere which has little Light Pollution to the north, and somewhere where it's safe to view (maybe people, vehicles or animals are a safety issue at night).

Try to pick somewhere that has a clear view of the horizon (at least to the North). If you have some trees, or other interesting items on the horizon, this can make for interesting photos.

Time

The auroral oval, looks like an oval donut and the earth rotates underneath it. For this reason, the oval is furthest south at your location near local midnight (12am-3am local time).

However, it's also depedant on how strong the aurora is too. For instance, if the alerting level for your location is Kp 4, then you won't see a Kp 4 aurora until around 12am. However, if the aurora is a Kp 5, you might see it at 10:30pm, and a Kp 6 you might see at 8pm.

Moonlight

Moonlight (like light pollution), tends to brighten the night sky, making it more difficult to see the aurora. When the moon is a quarter or less it has virtually no effect on viewing auroras, but when it is full, it can partially swamp out the fainter auroras. A strong aurora can be seen even when the moon is full.

Weather

Auroras occur many miles up, on the edge of our atmosphere. Weather exists below this region, so any clouds will block the aurora from being visible. (Though if you have broken cloud, you might see aurora between the clouds). If you can't see stars, you won't be able to see the aurora.

Alert Destination

Adec Aurora Alerts can be sent to any email address. Many Alpha Numeric Pager providers and Mobile Phones, can receive text messages sent via email. If you can get an email address for your pager or mobile phone, then we can send you alerts. Pagers and mobile phones are particularly useful, because you can have them wake you at night when an aurora is occuring.

Also if you're at your viewing location, having alerts sent to your pager or mobile phone can tell you when the aurora has finished and it's time to go home and get some sleep.