Photographing the Northern Lights

Astro Photography

updated: 2026-07-14

It's best to plan your photos for new moon phases, because the moon can completely outshine the aurora
Use a tripod to stabilize your camera of smartphone
Include an interesting foreground (landscape, building) in the shot; this greatly enhances the appeal of your photos
Power Supply: For longer recording times, be sure to use an additional external power source, such as a power bank. If the camera does not have a port for an external power source, use a compatible battery adapter.
Turn off the image stabilizer when using a tripod
Use the shortest possible focal lengths depending on your chosen subject, since the Northern Lights cover a very large area and can span the entire sky
Take your UV filter off your camera
Use a wide aperture (f/1.8, f/2.8, or f/4.0)
Set the shutter speed to between 2 and 30 seconds to limit the motion blur of the stars
Use an ISO setting between 800 and 5,000
Set the focus manually to just short of infinity
Always shoot in RAW format
Never use the flash, it will destroy you photo

Use the settings above and configure the camera's internal interval timer to take up to several hundred shots in RAW format without any pauses. Remember, in the end, just 30 shots will result in a 1-second video!
Once you have all the images, combine and process them using special software such as:

StarStaX to create a seamless time-lapse sequence
LR Timelapse (around 140 EUR)
or PixInsight using the procedure described in chapter Creating a Comet Video Clip.

iPhones: Starting with the iPhone 14 Pro and even more so with the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Night Mode automatically detects the Northern Lights. Just open the default Camera app, enable Night Mode, mount your phone on a tripod and you’re done. The iPhone 17 Pro delivers results that, just a few years ago, were the exclusive domain of DSLR cameras.
Android smartphones: it’s best to use the Pro mode in the camera app. There, you can manually set the ISO between 800 and 3,200 (for faint auroras), the exposure time to 2 to 4 seconds, and the white balance to 3,500 to 4,500 Kelvin (cool white/neutral). This makes the night sky appear a beautiful deep blue or black and makes the green of the Northern Lights pop without the image looking dirty or yellow. By the way, the Google Pixel is known for its astrophotography mode, which is usually better than the manual settings.
Time Laps Recording: If you want to film the Northern Lights instead of photographing them, use the time-lapse mode on your smartphone. Capturing the aurora in motion is a completely different and at least as impressive experience.
With high-end smartphones, you can also shoot images in RAW format. A standard JPEG often smooths out all the details of the aurora due to noise reduction. With a RAW file, you can later use apps like Lightroom to bring out the maximum brightness without the image becoming blurry.