A Thousand Words: The Best Year of the Decade to See the Northern Lights
With winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the arrival of the polar night at high latitudes, the aurora phenomenon (one of the most spectacular on the planet) is easily seen in the most boreal regions of Earth. As a result, year after year, more photographs of the nighttime celestial show appear on the internet during this end-of-year season. And with the photos come the debates surrounding expectations versus reality.
Many people spend a small fortune traveling to cold and expensive places hoping to see what the photos seem to promise: extremely colorful skies completely taken over by the phenomenon. Then comes the disappointment: what people often see are cloudy skies or relatively “normal” auroras (a green band across the sky) and they think: “Is that it?”
I don’t even need to say how much I hate that shallow reaction, disappointed by expectations created by digital media. After all, the very fact of being able to travel to a remote place to see auroras is already an immense privilege, and dismissing the phenomenon is a symptom of a kind of tourism that sells an “Instagrammable experience” without taking the time to explain how auroras actually form (I explain briefly in my portfolio).
And this type of tourism has also been fueled, at least since 2022, by the supposed “best opportunity of the decade to see auroras,” tied to an alleged increase in solar activity within a natural cycle that lasts ten years. This predatory tourism marketing exponentially raises expectations, feeding on the fear of missing out (the famous FOMO), as if the opportunity won’t come again until the next decade.
Yes, the Sun has an activity cycle of approximately eleven years. The higher the activity, the more solar eruptions will bombard Earth with radiation, forming more auroras. Since 2023, the Sun has been near its peak, which will decline in coming years and reach a minimum in five, six, or seven years. Then solar activity increases again, reaching another peak in 10–12 years. The numbers are not precise because the cycle is irregular, with 11 years being the average between peaks.
However, tourism companies selling the “opportunity of the decade” leave out the fact that even in years of lower solar activity there are still unusual eruptions and intense auroras. For example, of the strongest auroral events I’ve seen in my four northern expeditions, the most intense of all was in 2018 (photo below, published in National Geographic Brazil), when the Sun activity was far from its peak. And the only night I didn’t see any auroras (meaning solar activity was weak) despite favorable weather conditions was in 2023, when the Sun was nearly at the peak of its natural cycle. In other words, the opportunities to see auroras are constant, as long as the night sky is cloud-free.
Sami camp – Abisko, Sweeden (2018). ISO 1600, f/2.8, 8 sec
From a photographic point of view, my rule is this: weak auroras make for good artistic photos because they allow for long exposures, revealing colors and patterns the human eye cannot see. On the other hand, strong auroras are less photogenic because if the camera exposure is too long, the wonderful brightness that dazzles the eyes becomes a washed-out blur in the photo.
I’ve separated an example of photos I intentionally took on my last (and dearly missed) expedition to illustrate this using native JPEG files from the camera, with no further editing. Below, the photo on the left was taken with ISO 12800, lens aperture of 2.8 (a lot of light entering), and a two-second exposure. The one on the right, trying to reproduce the sky I saw with my eyes, used the same ISO, same aperture, and a 0.3-second exposure; that is, the first has almost 7 times more light hitting the sensor. Each person’s vision is unique and very different from a camera, so this is not an objective test, just an illustration, as I could see the church and adjusted the camera so the aurora was photographed as close as possible to how I perceived it.
Nordic church in Lofoten islands (2024). Jpegs straight out of the camera. ISO 12800, f/2.8. Left photo using 2 seconds exposure. Right photo using 0.3 seconds exposure.
Seeing just that green blur, it would even be understandable why clueless tourists get frustrated expecting to see with the naked eye the same colors shown in long-exposure photos. But that hides the fact that this blur moves, changes color, grows, shrinks, and can get stronger moments later. Also, the nights before and after this one had auroras that looked much better to the naked eye than in the camera. And this is the understanding anyone traveling to the poles should have: every night is unique, and the longer the trip, the better the chances of not having to rely on luck to see the most impressive auroras.
To compensate and better illustrate the point I want to make, I’ve included the opposite example. Again, a JPEG straight out of the camera, with no extra editing, from two nights before the photos above. The auroras were so intense that they lit up the asphalt, cast shadows of the people with me (who, by the way, were stunned by the spectacle), and ruined the photo with a bright, undefined smear. On the camera I used the same ISO and aperture as before and a 0.8-second exposure. I can guarantee that besides green, we saw yellow, red, and blue, but I was more focused on the show and ended up messing up the photograph.
Ruined photo of a huge aurora activity by a “relatively” long exposure of 0.8 seconds (ISO 12800, f/2.8)
To “prove” my theory (ironically) that weak auroras make the best photos, here’s one I’m very fond of that even received an honorable mention from the IPA. In person, all I saw was a faint green above the mountains. But given the auroral activity that night, I knew the camera could reveal much more than the eyes could. I set up the tripod in the miserable cold, set ISO 16000, aperture 2.8, and guessed that 5 seconds would be a good exposure. I glanced at the photo on the camera screen, celebrated, packed everything up, and went home happy with that photo and with all the auroras I’d seen that night, though they were hard to photograph.
Fairy tale sky – ISO 12800, f/2.8, 5 seconds
So, in the end, what’s the best year to go witness one of Earth’s greatest spectacles? The year you can! If you can go during the solar cycle peak, go. If not, prepare well and organize your savings to maximize your chances of seeing the poles’ colorful skies whenever possible. No FOMO, no debt, and no anxiety fueled by predatory tourism marketing. In all cases, it’s essential to study the phenomenon and the region you plan to visit (northern countries at the end/beginning of the year or New Zealand in mid-year) to know what to expect. Also remember that clouds are your worst enemy, that every night is unique, and that auroras manifest differently, sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger, and occasionally extremely strong, regardless of what phase the Sun’s cycle is in.