The best place to see the aurora in Alaska is of course the interior of Alaska. Many people venture to Alaska to witness this amazing display of the northern lights in Alaska, but not all put the odds in their favor.
Most people think that just coming to Alaska will guarantee you a shot at seeing the aurora borealis. While this can be true to some degree it all depends on the activity or the solar data. On strong active nights, you can see the northern lights throughout Alaska, however, on most nights the activity isn’t as strong and the odds lessen further south you are in the state ( like in the Anchorage area ).
It’s called the Northern Lights for a reason. The better odds of seeing this natural phenomenon is to be in the northern latitudes, and this applies to the state of Alaska. The Interior of Alaska and further north within the state will greatly improve your odds immensely. The city of Fairbanks isn’t the only option nor an ideal location due to the light pollution.
You want to be under the aurora oval to improve your chances. Fairbanks is a popular destination, but all of the tour companies take you out of the city of Fairbanks, and some travel to the Delta Junction area. The tours that chase the northern lights end up in this area half of the time due to the darkness within the sky. If you follow any of the aurora groups on Facebook ( Aurora Borealis Notifications Group ) and see “south of Fairbanks” as their location they are talking about the Delta Junction area.
Delta Junction while not being a well-known town unless you drive up on the Alaska Highway is a great destination for the northern lights. With a population of roughly 5-7000 people, those numbers are spread out over a vast area and that gives way to beautiful dark skies! And it’s only 45 mins from the Castner Glacier ice cave!
Delta Junction is about a 2-hour drive from Fairbanks down the Richardson Highway. The 2-hour drive might seem like a lot, but any mobile aurora tour you book will take you out of the city 1-2 hours away. Here is where the night can get interesting for the aurora chaser. There are few pullouts along our Alaska road system, most are not plowed out during the winter months. There are no restrooms that are open during the winter months, some find the use of a bathroom vital when chasing for 6 hours for the night.
The viewing can be limited to the road depending on the direction you go from Fairbanks as trees and mountains, hills can hinder visibility. There are a few places within the Delta Junction area that can provide for some decent amount of sky to gaze upon but that’s limited and you might find those few areas crowded.
So you might be asking yourself then what’s so special about Delta Junction then? Well, our aurora viewing lodge is located in Delta. The Face The Outdoors Aurora Viewing Lodge has all of the amenities of a home where you can wait in comfort for the aurora to come out. We have vast amounts of beautiful unobstructed dark skies available for our viewers, and it’s all private property.
There’s no chance of anyone showing up that is not associated with our tour to ruin your experience. No need to worry about not having a bathroom for any emergencies that may arise. If you get cold you can come in and warm up by the fire and still watch the show with our big windows.
When Is The Best Time To See The Northern Lights
When Is The Best Time To See The Northern Lights?
The aurora season in Alaska is between August 20th – April 20th. As early fall descends on the Interior of Alaska, the dark hours will vary as we are still losing light. Each night will get darker later and later as we head into winter.
The aurora can be more active around the fall and spring equinox’s which falls in the months of September and March, however, any night within the aurora season can be amazing! This is because the northern lights are dependent on the solar flares, and the bigger the flare or CME ( coronal mass ejection ) that leaves the sun for the earth will produce a nice display. When this flare leaves the sun it takes around 3 days before it makes contact with the earth.
If you are really wanting to up your game and put the odds even more into your favor of seeing the northern lights during your visit, then you’ll want to follow and track the space weather. The aurora is totally different than the normal Mother Nature weather we deal with, and the websites and apps that give a 27-day outlook aren’t a safe way to plan your trip. The only safest and most accurate data is the 3-day forecast.
Space Weather Live and Aurora Notify are full of information for you to plan your trip. Those that live on the West Coast can plan their trips a little more on short notice when planning around the data vs the East Coast folks, traveling eats up what could be spent on the ground under the skies.
The other factor is Mother Nature! You can see the aurora on cloudy days depending on the thickness of the clouds, and the weather is forever changing in Alaska. Opportunities do happen often giving way to the sky above. We don’t cancel our tours on the fact it’s cloudy, as more times than not the weather breaks up during the night giving way to stars and aurora.
If the aurora is really strong you will be able to see a glow through the clouds. But if it’s blown out snowing and the cloud cover is thick then you mine as well catch up on sleep! When planning your trip and you see a high KP number, you’d be doing yourself a disservice by thinking that is an indication of how the night will be and how it must be out in force. The interior of Alaska sees the aurora even on a KP0 so why is this you ask, well there are other factors involved.
All the stars need to align when being able to see the aurora. You need strong high solar winds, the higher the winds the more that space dust is moving and colliding with the atmosphere of the earth. You need to have high solar wind density to get those strong-looking bands in the sky that everyone likes so much vs the big green blobs. The Bt has got to be high so that you get those fast whipping bands across the sky as the particles snap back into the atmosphere vs bouncing off and away. The Bz you want to be negative, this puts it high in the sky vs low on the horizon and where the really fun stuff happens.
You take any one of those factors out of the equation and it affects the others, which affects what we see on the ground looking up. Just because the app you’re looking at says it’s supposed to be a Kp5 all that is, is a prediction, you need to follow the live feed of the space weather to really see what’s going on and coming.
So educate yourself some and study the information on the sites that cover it before you come. Trust me you won’t be let down as bad on a weak night when in your mind you think it’s supposed to look like the opposite. It’s a naturally occurring phenomenon so there’s not one day the same nor no switch to turn on to make it look the way you want it to.
What To Expect, And What To Bring
What Can You Expect, And What To Bring
An actual camera, not your phone camera
Headlamp
Sturdy tripod, not a cheap plastic one
SD cards, wide angle lens, extra batteries
Dress For The Conditions
So you got the trip all lined up, tours booked, and lodging! Told all your friends that you got the bucket list trip of a lifetime all planned and booked, making them all jealous of what you’re about to witness and take pictures of. Awesome! So you get up to Alaska, and see your first sighting and whip out your phone to take a picture and nothing shows up! Your picture is all black or pixelated and blurry and you don’t know why?!
Well, you might be surprised how often this happens. Everyone is so used to taking pictures with their phones these days that they don’t think that there’s a difference between day and night photography. Granted some of the newer phones can do an ok job as far as phone cameras go, but you gotta remember a phone is a phone FIRST and a camera SECOND, or THIRD!
All those beautiful pictures you saw of the aurora prior to booking or the ones you saw that made you make up your mind about going were taken with no phone camera. I know not everyone can afford a fancy camera and there are some cheaper options with a fixed lens and interchangeable ones that can do ok and better than a phone. You can also rent a camera and lens. After all, if this is your “bucket list” trip then why not invest in it, and educate yourself on the use of a camera in manual mode. If you come up with the idea that your gonna get your next Instagram post shot selfie with your phone, you might be disappointed!
You’ll need a camera that can handle high ISO values and a lens that has an F-stop of 2.8 or bigger ( F2, F1.8, F1.4, F1.2 ). A wide angle lens is also key to capturing as much as the sky as your lens will allow, I use a 15mm f2 Laowa lens and at times my 24mm f1.4 on my Canon EOS R, and my Canon EOS R5. I’m not saying go break the bank on a camera, but why not look at your options of capturing this moment in your life. Here’s a reasonable option starter camera that would work, canon T7. Lensrental is a reasonably priced outfit for cameras and lenses.
Bringing a headlamp is a valuable asset as you are working out in the dark. You could actually use your phone for good use and use the flashlight on the back to see what you’re doing in the dark, but your hand is tied up. Handsfree with a headlamp.
It’s Alaska you are visiting, in the wintertime to see the northern lights so make sure to dress for it. If nothing else layer up for those that live in warmer places that won’t need the bulky cold weather gear. It’s gonna be cold and windy and the wind chill factors can be harmful to exposed skin.
A cheap plastic tripod has a higher chance of breaking in the Alaskan conditions than if you had spent a few extra bucks on a metal one. Remember what it is you are trying to accomplish here! Extra SD cards and batteries for your camera as you can easily drain a battery on a good night of lights. The more you press that shutter working that battery in the cold temps the faster it dies.
Now you’re standing under the northern lights and say to yourself why does it look that way, or is it going to get brighter, where are the colors? Remember this is a phenomenon taking place above you, and if you studied the data for the night you’d see why and understand why it’s faint. It’s not going to be bright every time you see it, it comes and goes throughout the night playing peekaboo. It does what it wants and it doesn’t wait for you to be ready. You gotta move when she’s out and about and not lollygagging getting dressed and out the door!
Set Yourself Up For Success
Set Yourself Up For Success, Not Failure!
So you got your camera, lens, tripod, and cold weather gear now what? Well, there are a few more key components you can add to your arsenal in hunting the northern lights, and that is BIG open skies! Bigger the skies the better! When you hit the jackpot on a big CME night, you’ll be amazed at how much you can see and witness.
We happen to offer such an experience. At Face The Outdoors Aurora Viewing lodge you can wait in comfort with a crackling fire until the light show begins. We have all the amenities of home at your disposal as well as big windows to keep an eye on the night sky. It beats sitting in a van all night or standing outside the van all night without a bathroom on mobile aurora tours. If you were gonna book a mobile tour and they were going to bring you down to this area, wouldn’t you rather relax in comfort with a bathroom?
Either way, you can’t go wrong with visiting Alaska no matter what time of the year. Just remember if this really is your bucket list trip, invest a little into it. Invest in the memories and moments captured that you’ll be dying to share with others and display on your walls. No one will want to show off their out-of-focus and pixelated photos as much as a piece of art that they themselves captured! We offer help with your camera settings to make sure you get those pictures worthy of bragging rights!
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