Can you take pictures of the northern lights with a phone? It’s a timely question today, with space weather forecasters warning that “strong” to “severe” geomagnetic storms could cause displays of aurora in up to 25 U.S. states on Thursday, June 4, and Friday, June 5.

The good news is that not only is it easy to take pictures of the northern lights with a phone, but it’s also a great tool for spotting their arrival.

Northern Lights Photography With A Smartphone

I’ve photographed aurora over frozen lakes in northern Sweden and snow-covered mountains in Iceland , and captured some of the brightest displays I’ve ever seen in Churchill , Manitoba. I use all kinds of cameras, including manual cameras, GoPros and 360-degree gadgets. What surprises most people is that I often begin with a very simple piece of equipment: my smartphone.

Just a few years ago, using a smartphone for astrophotography would have sounded ridiculous. When I first started chasing aurora a decade ago, smartphone cameras were virtually useless after dark. Today they’re so sensitive that professional aurora guides — like me — often use them to check whether a faint glow in the sky is actually the northern lights. Can I tell without a phone? Usually, yes — but it’s always best to check before waking up guests. This is exactly what you can do tonight.

Finding The Northern Lights With A Smartphone

Aurora is often much fainter than people expect. Even when a display is active, it can appear to the naked eye as little more than a gray cloud. A smartphone camera gathers light for several seconds, revealing colors and structures that would otherwise remain hidden.

So if you see a pale, almost colorless streak appear above the horizon tonight and you’re not quite sure what you’re looking at, take out a phone, point it towards the north and — if it’s an aurora — the screen will feature some green or red color in the sky. The camera sees what the eye cannot. When you’ve identified the aurora, you can set about taking a really good image — using your smartphone.

Northern Lights Photography With A Smartphone: Night Mode

Smartphones aren’t just aurora-detection tools. Flagship models are now very capable in low light. If I’m using an iPhone, I switch off the flash, make sure Night Mode is active and use the main camera rather than the ultra-wide lens. The primary lens is almost always better in low-light conditions and captures significantly more detail and color.

A simple three-second Night Mode exposure is often enough to get an excellent image. But there are other options.

Northern Lights Photography With A Smartphone: Checklist

  • Turn off the flash — it won’t illuminate the night sky and can ruin your image by lighting up nearby objects.
  • Set your phone camera to RAW or ProRAW if your phone offers it, giving you far more flexibility to enhance colors and recover detail when editing.
  • Use the main camera lens rather than the ultra-wide lens, which generally performs much worse in low light.
  • Enable Night Mode (or Astrophotography/Pro Mode) to allow longer exposures and capture more detail.
  • Take test shots even if the aurora looks faint. Smartphone sensors are often more sensitive than the human eye and can detect colors that may be difficult for the human eye to see.
  • Keep the phone completely steady using a tripod, smartphone mount (or a solid surface such as a wall, fence or car roof)
  • Use the longest exposure possible — typically between three and 10 seconds — to gather maximum light from faint aurora (three seconds is often enough).

Northern Lights Photography With A Smartphone: Tripods

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned from photographing aurora, it’s that stability matters more than almost anything else. If you can, use a small tripod. If you don’t have one, at least bring your elbows in to your body, thereby using your body to help stability. Or use the roof of a car or anything else stable.

If you can use a tripod, there’s a bonus feature in modern phones that recognizes when they’re completely stable. On an iPhone, for example, Night Mode exposures can extend far beyond the standard three seconds when the phone is mounted on a tripod, producing dramatically brighter and cleaner images. That might be crucial, depending on the display.

Northern Lights Photography With A Smartphone: Composition

Think about composition — photographs of green or red in the sky might seem spectacular to you, but without context, they will not be memorable in the long term. The most memorable images aren’t necessarily the brightest aurora displays, but the photographs with a sense of place. The landscape provides context and scale.

You can even try to get the people with you in a shot — and that’s often the best souvenir shot of all.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.