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Aurora Borealis: Photographing the Northern Lights in Minnesota

We are so lucky to live in Minnesota where we have the occasional chance to see the Aurora Borealis. On Sunday night there was a high chance of seeing the Northern Lights in our part of the world so we stayed up late, gathered our photography equipment, and found a nice spot to watch the sky. To help us track the Northern Lights, we used an app that sent notifications right to our phone. The app is called “My Aurora Forecast” and is available for free. It has a map with real time conditions for the Aurora Borealis as well as cloud coverage, and updated hourly forecasts. 
 
At first the cloud coverage was a little discouraging but we waited it out and then…pure MAGIC! We saw the lights dancing across the sky and it was such an incredible experience! I had a lot of fun experimenting with astrophotography trying to capture the colors and lights. It was definitely a memorable moment and one that was well worth staying up late! 
 
I used my DSLR and remote from my iPhone to take my photos. I also remembered to bring my tripod to allow for wider aperture and longer exposure, however I was missing the connecting piece so I had no way to attach my camera! All is well, as the roof of the 4Runner and whatever items in the glove compartment we could find to prop up the camera ended up working great! 

Tips:

  • We used a FREE app called “My Aurora Forecast” that has a map, forecasts, and sends notifications right to our phone.
  • We used our DSLR and iPhones for photos
  • Don’t forget your tripod
  • Find a place away from city lights
  • Be patient and have fun!

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Cole took these with his iPhone:

More from my DSLR:

Here is screenshot of the free app we used to track the Northern Lights. It’s called “My Aurora Forecast” and it has worked well for our needs:

Here is a screen shot of the KP levels from the night we photographed the Northern Lights. The scale is from KP 0 – 9 and the higher the number the stronger the lights and colors. It was a very good night with levels above 7 however as you can see from the photos we did have some cloud coverage and the skies were not absolutely clear. The app also has a real time map feature for KP levels, cloud coverage, and pins reporting Aurora Borealis sightings.

A couple of our photos were shared on MPR News! Click here for the link to the article at Minnesota Public Radio. We will be the last two photos.

More of my favorites from our night photographing the Aurora Borealis. Definitely something to check off the Minnesota bucket list!