app to track northern lights

You don't check the forecast for the Northern Lights. You hunt them. And the only gear you really need is a good aurora app.

Forget static forecasts. The aurora changes by the minute. You need real-time data for where you're standing, right now. The best apps give you a clear go or no-go.

The Only Number That Matters: Kp Index

You can get lost in solar wind data and geomagnetic charts. Or you can just watch the Kp index. It rolls all that complex space weather into a single number from 0 to 9.

• Kp 0-2: Calm. You'll need to be way up in the Arctic, and even then, the show will probably be faint.
• Kp 3-5: This is the sweet spot for a lot of places. The lights get brighter and more active. A Kp of 5 is a minor storm, which can make the aurora visible across Norway and the southern UK.
• Kp 6-9: This is major storm territory. These are the rare events that push the aurora far south, sometimes into the northern US.

Your app's main job is to give you a live Kp index. Everything else is a bonus.

The Best Aurora Tracking Apps

Some apps are simple, others are packed with data for serious chasers.

For Simplicity and Solid Alerts: My Aurora Forecast & Alerts

This is usually the first app people try, for good reason. It has a clean interface and does one thing really well: it sends you a push notification when there's a good chance of seeing the lights where you are. It gives you the current Kp, a list of good viewing spots, and a basic forecast. The free version has ads, but it works.

For Seeing What's Happening Now: Hello Aurora

A forecast is a guess. An eyewitness report is a fact. Hello Aurora's strength is its social map. With over 26,000 sightings logged in 2025 alone, you can see what people are actually seeing right now. That's better than any forecast. It also pulls real-time data from magnetometer stations for a constantly updated view.

For the Data Nerds: SpaceWeatherLive

If you want to see the raw data behind the Kp index, this is the app. It gives you everything—solar wind speeds, magnetic field orientation, all of it. It’s less of a simple alert system and more of a dashboard for making your own calls.

An App Can't See Clouds

I learned this the hard way in Iceland. The app was buzzing with a Kp 6 alert—a major storm. We drove for two hours, parked our 2011 Honda Civic at 11:37 PM, and waited. Nothing. The app was right about the aurora, but it couldn't see the thick layer of clouds blocking the entire show.

The lesson was obvious: an aurora app is useless without a good weather app. I use Astrospheric for cloud cover forecasts now. It’s built for astronomers, so it’s reliable.

Your Phone is Good Enough to Be Your Camera

You don't need a big DSLR. Your phone can take great pictures of the aurora. Just make sure you do a few things:

1. Get a tripod. You have to keep the phone perfectly still for a long exposure, or you’ll just get a green blur. This isn't optional.
2. Use Night Mode. This is what lets the phone do a long exposure to pull in enough light to see the detail.
3. Manually focus. Tap on a bright star or a light in the distance to lock your focus.
4. Set your exposure. Try a shutter speed between 5 and 15 seconds. You might need to bump the ISO to 800 or 1600.

Your phone can get you a great shot. But don't forget to put it down and just watch the sky.