Alan Pagoto - Astronomy, Science & Nature

What about a third night in a row of northern lights?

Here we don’t chase northern lights, we chase good weather. Even with bad data it’s usually possible to see something.

📌 Lakselv 🇳🇴
⏰ March 22nd 2026

Second night of Aurora in a row! I was still tired of the previous night since we had driven no less than 900km in a day (we got rewarded by seeing blue Aurora for the first time in our lives) but when the data is good we need to go! I didn’t have to drive much to see this one, only 10km away from Lakselv center.

📌 Lakselv - Norway 🇳🇴
⏱️ March 22nd 2026

auroraboreal

This one was not easy to catch! We had to drive 300km to the south to spot this one since it was completely cloudy in Muonio. But Lapland didn’t disappoint and we wrapped our day in Finland 🇫🇮 with this amazing Aurora!

⏰ March 20th 2026
📌 Pello - Finland 🇫🇮

Another night in Senja, another night of beautiful lights. I got a spot suggestion from and decided to drive there and had the chance to see the lights above Segla. Our stay in Senja has been amazing! Driving back to Tromso today for the next part of our journey.

We have just arrived in Senja Island and it’s been biblical!

Another night of beautiful lights in Norway 🇳🇴

This time we drove to Sommaroy to catch it. It wasn’t that good when we arrived but the substorm didn’t disappoint again.

Out first night in Norway didn’t disappoint. After sleeping almost the whole afternoon because of our long journey from Montréal to Tromsø, we saw Aurora as soon as we opened the door after dark.

An amazing first night! Hope to have many like this one!

When I got the notification of a X1.9 flare i started packing to chase Aurora again.
The hit of the CME happened in the afternoon yesterday. Europe got a show, we just needed to wait for the darkness. Weather was terrible but I found a clear sky spot near Brockville, 200km away from Montreal. I decided to go.
When I arrived there, a bummer. Aurora was pretty weak. The orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field was pointing northwards but it started trending down, so I decided to wait. After one hour of negative orientation, Aurora was still the same or even worse. I decided to come back home. The density was pretty low and we needed better numbers to see the lights. When it got better it was already 5am and I couldn’t see the best part of the show because Montreal was under the clouds and I had to work in the next morning.
We have chances again tonight but yesterday was a lesson for me about reliability of ovation model when solar wind speed is high.
I understand it’s part of the game. Chasing Aurora in middle latitudes is tough and we always need to be prepared for the worst. I’m still in!