This question is on purpose the number 1 in this list, because it is – in my humble opinion – one of the most important. The short answer is: Only in few cases.

For the human eye, the colors of the Northern lights are much weaker. The reason for this is the difference between the camera and our eyes. If we look at the sky for five seconds, the human eye sees every moment once. We may remember them in our brain, but our eye can see only one moment a time and erases the one before. If the camera ‘looks’ for five seconds at the sky, it adds all moments together onto its sensor and creates one image from all those single moments. Therefore the colors are mostly stronger in the image opposed to how we see them. Imagine a white piece of paper and a green crayon. If you stroke once gentle, you can barely see the color. If you keep stroking for 5 seconds, the color visible will be stronger.

Trying to photograph auroras exactly as the human eye sees it, is nearly impossible. It would result in a black landscape because there just isn’t enough light. Our eyes see pale aurora colors but at the same time we see the landscape. Eye or camera? There is more than one truth.

For you to have a better idea what you might see, I edited some photos the way the camera sees it compared to how I saw it.
Due to a technical challenge please click here to see the comparisons

1. Common, the green color is visible but red and purple nearly without color:

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2. Seldom, when the red becomes visible it is there for quite a while moving only slowly.:

[fusion_al_beforeafter image_a=”https://salamapaja.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/20131214_2854.jpg” label_a=”Camera” image_b=”https://salamapaja.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/20131214_2854-2.jpg” label_b=”Eye” orientation=”horizontal” show_labels=”always” label_font_size=”13px” handle_color=”” handle_position=”50″ handle_border_size=”3px” border_radius=”” enable_border=”no” border_color=”” border_size=”1px” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” /]

3. Very seldom, during a strong geomagnetic storm, nearly all colors were visible:

[fusion_al_beforeafter image_a=”https://salamapaja.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/20121114_5319.jpg” label_a=”Camera” image_b=”https://salamapaja.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/20121114_5319-2.jpg” label_b=”Eye” orientation=”horizontal” show_labels=”always” label_font_size=”13px” handle_color=”” handle_position=”50″ handle_border_size=”3px” border_radius=”” enable_border=”no” border_color=”” border_size=”1px” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” /]