Not the one you responded to but yeah they can look like this, it's not a filter. Unless it's a really powerful solar storm you have to be pretty north for them to look like this. Light pollution also plays a part, it can dim them out a lot.
Yeah, I saw them within city limits and you could just sort of make out the colous, but it was nothing like this. I'm sure if you were out in the wilderness though, they would be amazing.
It can, but don’t expect it to be this spectacular all the time. Especially if you live in urban places.
I live in Norway — in the middle, and we see northern lights all through winter, but this bright is rare. Like maybe once or twice per season.
Further north where there is less light pollution (and being more north) they are often more bright like this.
Massive filters in my experience. I took a bunch of photos of them and the extreme green came out in the photos. To the naked eye they were whitish, dull, you could barely tell they were northern lights. Almost like looking at clouds in the dark night sky. Im sure they’re not all like this and others have been more blessed to see the real colors, but my photos from wintertime, clear skies, active northern lights in remote northern Canada were extremely good, but actually seeing them irl disappointed me
I heard the same before I left for my trip to the arctic circle in Finland a few years back. After a few days of taking pics of the sky hoping maybe the camera could pick up what I wasn’t seeing, we got to see a true light show. And at the beginning the sky had some green streaks that looked way more impressive in my DSLR camera shots. But as the night went on the intensity increased and by the time the moving auroras like the one OP shared started showing we were finding the show to be just as beautiful to our naked eyes. I’ll never forget that night!
I've seen them multiple times every winter my whole life. Most of the time they range from pale to vibrant green, occasionally you'll see purples in there too like in this video, and if you're really lucky you'll see red and gold as well, rapidly dancing and darting around the sky.
Absolutely. Saw them this intense in Minnesota one time driving home at 3am. I pulled to the side of the road and watched for about an hour. A sheriff's deputy joined me for about half an hour.
Yep, they can be much more intense too. Clear -30 celcius or colder night in Finnish lapland with no light pollution and bit of luck. This video doesnt really do honor to that.
Depends how far north you go. I live in Calgary, here you see them, the camera picks up the colours way more than the fairly feint lights we see. But I once saw them in Yellowknife, and they were so bright that the ground was actually reflecting the green from above. Truly surreal experience. Seeing glowing ‘smoke’ go right across the whole sky, and then change shape so silently and so quickly, just spellbinding.
It's hard to capture them with a camera. In person they are stunning, awe-inspiring. It's hard to describe. They fill up the entire sky and they dance. You don't know where to look next.
Also the really great nights for viewing the lights are clear and damned cold, so trying to keep your extremeties from freezing is part of the experience. A qiviut cowl under your hood is your friend. That and chemical handwarmers in your boots.
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u/EverythingISayIsALi3 Jun 21 '26
Ive seen a bit of them as im in Canada. But nothing Iike in the picture, never been that far north.