¡Ayuda, hay luna llena! ¿Arruinará mi experiencia con las auroras?
Find a revised version of this article aquí
Imagine this: You just made it in the subarctic region, right under the auroral oval. It seems like you’re incredibly lucky: You hit the right time of the year (it’s dark enough!), the solar activity is good, and – oh my – clear skies ahead! Fantastic! But then… whoops… you forgot to check on the moon! Round and full and bright will it appear at the arctic night sky, as if it had just one mission: Spoiling your lifelong dream of experiencing the magic of the northern lights aka aurora borealis.
So, here’s our spoiler: Don’t worry! It’s not all lost just yet. In fact, we as aurora photographers and filmmakers love the full moon, and for each month during the northern light’s seasons, these days are marked as “head out” in our calendar.
Luna llena en el Parque Nacional Thingvellir, Islandia
Does the moon affect the northern lights itself?
But let’s start from the beginning:
The Northern Lights are maybe the most magical natural phenomena we can witness from Earth. Their primary cause is activity on the Sun. Auroras happen when electrons emitted by the Sun react with different gases in Earth’s atmosphere. The charged solar particles excite those earthly atoms, causing them to light up, creating what we call the northern and southern lights. The conclusion? You guessed it. The moon has absolutely no effect on either solar winds or geomagnetic storms whatsoever.
It all depends on the strength of the aurora
Dicho esto, como bien sabe cualquier amante de las estrellas, una luna llena proyecta mucha luz en el cielo. Y sí, para ojos no entrenados, hace que sea más difícil ver la aurora, al igual que la luz brillante de la luna puede ocultar estrellas débiles de nuestra vista.
Sin embargo, todo depende de la intensidad del espectáculo que estés presenciando. Una aurora débil podría quedar opacada por la luz brillante de la luna, pero si tienes un nivel de actividad solar moderado o alto, aún disfrutarás de una buena vista de las auroras boreales. Al contrario de lo que podrías haber oído, es posible ver la aurora boreal, o luces del norte, cuando hay una luna brillante, incluso una luna llena, en el cielo.
Luna llena en las tierras altas, Islandia
Aurora con Luna llena en los fiordos del este de Islandia
So why do we love the full moon for northern lights hunting?
Desliza por nuestra galería y encontrarás la respuesta en nuestras fotos:
- Moonlight lights up the foreground and makes the whole scenery even more magical.
- The sky occurs beautifully in deep blue instead of pitch black.
- Especially for Northern Lights portraits, the moonlight can softly light up people, so they won‘t just occur as silhouettes.
- The shutter speed is much shorter, making it easier for people to stand still and therefore occur sharply in long-exposure shots.
- The shorter shutter speed also makes time-lapses look much more realistic and closer to real-time videos.
- Due to the shorter shutter speed, the shapes and patterns of the northern lights occur much more clear in the pictures.
- Last but not least, a full moon night makes it also much easier for us to orientate in the dark and to enjoy the scenery to the fullest. Believe me, it has its advantages if you don‘t have to worry to disappear in a lava cave with just one wrong step in the darkness. It‘s still Iceland after all!
En conclusión: Si quieres aumentar tus posibilidades de presenciar las auroras boreales con tus propios ojos, trata de evitar cualquier luz lunar. Si tu objetivo es hacer una gran foto, únete a nosotros cuando la luna esté presente.
Así que, si puedes, compra el billete, sube al viaje. Encontrarás nuestra selección de tours aquí:
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