Preferred App for Aurora Photos for Viking Northern Lights Cruise

[Australia08]

I know there is usually a photography lecturer on the Northern Lights cruises who gives photo tips for capturing the aurora with an iPhone camera.  I'm having trouble locating suggestions I've read posted several years ago.  Can anyone tell me what the best app is so I can download it before we take our trip?  Thanks.

[AstroExeter]

I will be the "Northern Lights astronomer" on Viking Venus in Feb/March and I will be delivering talks about the aurora, amongst other astronomy subjects. Part of my talks will be about using apps for aurora predictions and also photographing the lights. As far as apps are concerned, ignore any that say they us the KP Index to predict aurora! The KP Index cannot be used to predict the appearance of aurora in a local area. The only accurate app for predicting the Northern Lights is the Glendale app which is not actually an app that you download but rather a sort of browser plugin. This app uses the Interplanetary Magnetic  Field, Substorm analysis and Geomagntic activity to predict aurora.

It uses ground-breaking scientific research and models, that are not available anywhere else, to provide totally accurate aurora alerts and forecasts. It does things totally different to all other web-sites and apps by tracking the actual substorms that cause auroras in real-time, significantly out-performing all data and alerts provided by other apps, official scientific agencies and universities. You can get the app by opening the browser on your device and going to https://aurora-alerts.uk/ and visit the app in the web-browser on your phone. Use Chrome or Safari. It will look just like you've visited any other web-page. You can bookmark it just like a web-page. However, that is NOT the way to do it! If you click the install button or the little icon in the top right of the browser that is three vertical dots (or a square with an arrow on iPhones), a little menu will appear and one of the options is 'Add to Start/Home Screen'. If you click that, the app gets packaged up like a native app and installed onto your phone. You will get an icon for it on your start screen, just like all your other apps.

 

Hope this helps!

Edited January 28, 2022 by AstroExeter

[AstroExeter]

Apologies! Misread your post but for info, older iPhones can successfully use Night Cap Pro and newer models have the ability to take long exposures and shoot in RAW, which is what you want and the iPhone 12 has "Stars mode". A small tripod is recommended as shooting long exposures (5 secs and more) can result in blurry images when taken handheld. There is no substitute for using a proper camera when it comes to shooting the Northern Lights though but you will be able to get reasonable pictures with a smart phone.

Edited January 28, 2022 by AstroExeter

[Australia08]

18 minutes ago, AstroExeter said:

Apologies! Misread your post but for info, older iPhones can successfully use Night Cap Pro and newer models have the ability to take long exposures and shoot in RAW, which is what you want and the iPhone 12 has "Stars mode". A small tripod is recommended as shooting long exposures (5 secs and more) can result in blurry images when taken handheld. There is no substitute for using a proper camera when it comes to shooting the Northern Lights though but you will be able to get reasonable pictures with a smart phone.

Thanks so much. All of your info is very helpful. See you onboard!

[uktog]

Thank you. For those of us not able to bring a camera, what app would you recommend for an iPhone. It would be good to have things set up before I leave home 

[AstroExeter]

2 minutes ago, uktog said:

Thank you. For those of us not able to bring a camera, what app would you recommend for an iPhone. It would be good to have things set up before I leave home 

It depends on what model you have. iPhone 12 have "Stars mode" which is fine. iPhone 11 has a "Night mode" and earlier/older models can use Nightcap pro.

[seaquay]

Hi AstroExeter, I am on the 1st March cruise and plan to bring my DSLR camera with me, what lens would you suggest I pack?

 

[THartman]

Any suggestions for Android phones?  Looking forward to meeting you on the February 5 trip.

[AstroExeter]

15 hours ago, seaquay said:

Hi AstroExeter, I am on the 1st March cruise and plan to bring my DSLR camera with me, what lens would you suggest I pack?

 

The ideal lens is a 14mm - 24mm with an aperture of around f/1.8 to f/4.0. Maximum light and maximum field of view. Of course you can still get good images with a stock 50mm lens.

Edited January 29, 2022 by AstroExeter

[AstroExeter]

3 hours ago, THartman said:

Any suggestions for Android phones?  Looking forward to meeting you on the February 5 trip.

Depending on your phone you can use the default camera app and adjust the ISO, shutter speed and exposure to take a 10 to 15 sec exposure at f2.0 with an ISO of 800. You may have to play with the settings to get decent images. As for apps, Cortex Camera is good but you really need a small tripod and remote shutter. You will get images using handheld but while they will look reasonable, if you want to print them, they will be poor.

[Floater67]

On 1/28/2022 at 3:29 PM, AstroExeter said:

Apologies! Misread your post but for info, older iPhones can successfully use Night Cap Pro and newer models have the ability to take long exposures and shoot in RAW, which is what you want and the iPhone 12 has "Stars mode". A small tripod is recommended as shooting long exposures (5 secs and more) can result in blurry images when taken handheld. There is no substitute for using a proper camera when it comes to shooting the Northern Lights though but you will be able to get reasonable pictures with a smart phone.

When you refer to the “Stars” mode, do you mean Night? There is no such mode on my iP12 Pro Max, nor does Apple support reference one. Maybe I’m just missing it, but would appreciate any guidance. Thanks. 

[AstroExeter]

2 hours ago, Floater67 said:

When you refer to the “Stars” mode, do you mean Night? There is no such mode on my iP12 Pro Max, nor does Apple support reference one. Maybe I’m just missing it, but would appreciate any guidance. Thanks. 

Sorry, yes it is "night mode". The iPhone 12 Pro Max has has a very good night mode that utilises the wide lens and is able to shoot in " proraw" mode which allows for post editing in software such as Photoshop or Lightroom.