How to Photograph the Northern Lights With a Smartphone. An 𝕏 thread.

SWPC has issued a G4 Watch, effective tomorrow, November 12, and a G3 watch for tonight, November 11. Hype is starting to grow about potential Northern Lights viewings. This is the fourth G4 Watch SWPC has issued this Solar Cycle.

~ ~ Remember, the Northern Lights with CMEs is NEVER a guarantee. ~ ~

Photographers are beginning to charge their cameras in hope to capture the beautiful Aurora tonight and tomorrow night! “But what if I don’t have an actual camera?” That’s fine! The majority of modern day smartphones can easily perform well enough to capture crisp, clear pictures of the Northern Lights. In this thread, I will show you what settings I use to photograph the Northern Lights with my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra! This technique also applies to any modern iPhone, although your settings may be slightly different than mine. @spacewxwatch Starting off, let's look at our latest cloud coverage map. Fortunately it appears that most of the CONUS will receive little cloud coverage, except for most of Wyoming and some of the northeast. Fortunately, we will not have much (if any) wildfire smoke like we did with our last G4 watch in June.

How to Photograph the Northern Lights With a Smartphone. An 𝕏 thread.

SWPC has issued a G4 Watch, effective tomorrow (June 01) into Monday (June 02), and hype is starting to grow about potential Northern Lights viewings. This is the third G4 Watch SWPC has issued this Solar Cycle, and only the third one within the past 20 years.

~ ~ Remember, the Northern Lights with CMEs is NEVER a guarantee. ~ ~

Photographers are beginning to charge their cameras in hope to capture the beautiful lights tomorrow night! “But what if I don’t have an actual camera?” That’s fine! The majority of modern day smartphones can easily perform well enough to capture crisp, clear pictures of the Northern Lights. In this thread, I will show you what settings I use to photograph the Northern Lights with my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra! This technique also applies to any modern iPhone, although your settings may be slightly different than mine. Starting off, let's look at our latest cloud coverage map. Fortunately it appears that most of the CONUS will receive little cloud coverage, except for parts of the northwest and extreme northeast. However, significant wildfire smoke from Canada will infiltrate a large section of the CONUS and create hazy skies. I’m really unsure how this will impact potential viewings overall, but I know in the single time I’ve dealt with heavy wildfire smoke, it made viewing the Northern Lights a bit harder, but it also made the pillars appear deeper red in color.

How to Photograph the Northern Lights With a Smartphone. An 𝕏 thread.

With 2 CMEs now on their way to Earth and expected to impact sometime tomorrow (Dec 31), it's time to get those cameras charged and final preparations ready to photograph the Northern Lights!

The Space Weather Prediction Center has also issued a G3 watch effective tomorrow (December 31 UTC-day)

“But what if I don’t have an actual camera?” That’s fine! The majority of modern day smartphones can easily perform well enough to capture crisp, clear pictures of the Northern Lights. In this thread, I will show you what settings I use to photograph the Northern Lights with my Galaxy S23 Ultra! This technique also applies to any modern iPhone, although your settings may be slightly different than mine.
Starting off, let's look at our latest cloud coverage map. Unfortunately it appears that most of the CONUS will receive significant cloud coverage, which will hinder opportunities to photograph the Northern Lights.

How to Photograph the Northern Lights With a Smartphone. An 𝕏 thread.

With our CME now impacting Earth, it's time to get those cameras charged and final preparations ready to photograph the Northern Lights!

“But what if I don’t have an actual camera?” That’s fine! The majority of modern day smartphones can easily perform well enough to capture crisp, clear pictures of the Northern Lights. In this thread, I will show you what settings I use to photograph the Northern Lights with my Galaxy S23 Ultra! Starting off, since I use a Galaxy S23 Ultra, I will head on over to my camera's “Pro” module. If your smartphone camera does not have this module, most have a “More” tab with multiple modules within it.

From there, we have everything we need to get set up.

How To Find The Ideal Location For Northern Lights Photography. An 𝕏 Thread.

With a G4 watch now being issued for the X1.8 flare that launched a large Earth-directed CME, I figured I'd repost the thread I made on how to find YOUR ideal spot to photograph the Northern Lights!

This is not a guide on how to photograph the Northern Lights, just on how to find a suitable location to setup your equipment for photography.

Follow me on 𝕏 to receive continued updates!

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Starting off, we're going to use a Light Pollution Map to identify your current location, and where you may need to go to get out of light polluted areas.

- lightpollutionmap.info

For me, since I live in the Kansas City metropolitan area, I would want to go northeast to get out of significant light pollution. Ideally, you want areas to your north, northeast and northwest to be generally clear of any lights.

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