Here’s how you can catch the northern lights this week

Posted by Dien Nguyen on 11:45 PM

If the sky is clear where you live, head outside tonight for a possible light show.

For the past few nights, the northern lights, or aurora borealis, have been visible across Canada. If you’ve missed them, you’ll get a chance again on Thursday and Friday.

READ MORE: Why do we get the northern lights?

There haven’t been any solar flares or coronal mass ejections from the sun to cause this. Instead, it’s due to a massive coronal hole, an area where the magnetic field opens up, allowing particles to stream out and travel along the solar wind.

When these particles reach Earth, they interact with our magnetic field setting the sky alight with beautiful curtains of green, red and purple.

Earlier this week, people from across the country captured beautiful displays.

Notanee Bourassa captured this amazing display of northern lights 32 km north of Regina, Saskatchewan early Wednesday morning.

Courtesy Notanee Bourassa

My time lapse of the recent big solar storm! 2 nights in a row from southern Ontario! https://t.co/6p7SMwLiDd @TweetAurora @NorthLightAlert

— Laura Duchesne ☄ (@LauraDuchesne) September 6, 2016

#yeg #exploreedmonton #explorecanada #travelalberta #albertaskies #amazing #amazingcolors #aurora #northernlights #yegdt #cityofedmonton pic.twitter.com/9lU7uMRiYr

— Hugo Sanchez (@YEGHugo) September 29, 2016

Whoa! Check out this photo by Famous Amos Photography in #Alberta last night! #northernlights See more here: https://t.co/oNm6w4uVl0 pic.twitter.com/EJX7E3VnaS

— DewEze (@DewEze_Mfg) September 29, 2016

It was even seen in the U.S.

@IAStormChasing #northernlights #northiowa #92916 pic.twitter.com/iXNM2Ez7Rx

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Related

  • The northern lights seen from Mount Forest, Ontario. IN PHOTOS: Northern lights dance across night sky

  • The northern lights dance across the sky, as seen from the International Space Station. WATCH: Stunning ultra-high-definition video of northern lights seen from space

  • The northern lights over Warkworth Castle in Northumberland, Scotland. IN PHOTOS: Brilliant northern lights display illuminates the skies across Europe

Global News

— Diana Hayungs (@diana_hayungs) September 29, 2016

Both the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center and Natural Resources Canada are predicting storm activity on Sept. 29 and 30, with activity dropping afterwards.

READ MORE: How solar storms could leave us in the dark

If you want to try to catch them for yourselves, head outside once the sky gets dark and look north. It may take time for your eyes to adjust to the dark, but after they do, you should be able to see even faint aurora if it’s present.

Another option is to set up a camera on a tripod and set it to a high ISO and take a long-exposure photograph, maybe around 15 seconds. The camera is far more sensitive than the human eye in this set-up.

Anticipated geomagnetic storm activity.

Natural Resources Canada

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