Last week, we drove outside of Anchorage downtown to catch the northern lights. It was supposed to be Kp 4 that night. The Kp number is a system of measuring aurora strength. It goes from 0 to 9 (0 being very weak, 9 being a major geomagnetic storm with strong auroras visible). So when your looking at the aurora forecast page, you want to see high Kp numbers. The higher the better.
We drove little bit further north, heading into the mountain area. The light wasn’t too strong but it was forming a shape like a rainbow above the river and mountain ranges. We kind of stumbled upon this area but the scenery here was just stunning. Having the moon on the other side of the sky also helped. Anchorage doesn’t see as much northern lights as northern Alaska like Fairbanks, but because of all the diverse foreground, you can create more interesting northern lights photos in Anchorage like this.
