Illuminating Adventures: The Northern Lights and the Rise of Astrotourism Through Digital Photography

In August of last year, near a serene lake in Michigan, Karl Duesterhaus, 34, from Chicago, witnessed a rare occurrence: the aurora borealis, which manifested as muted colors in an unusually bright night sky. It was an exciting moment, he remarked, yet he was taken aback when he examined cellphone images snapped the prior evening.

“The hues were much more pronounced,” he noted.

Mr. Duesterhaus is not alone in noticing the disparity between the subtle tones perceived by the naked eye and the striking colors captured in digital photographs. Many explorers, some drawn in by the breathtaking visuals on social media, are also recognizing this variance.

As the solar activity responsible for the aurora borealis is anticipated to reach the zenith of its 11-year cycle within the coming year, the chances to observe it are flourishing through cruises, train journeys, and excursions. According to market research entity Grand View Research, tourism related to the northern lights accrued $843 million in 2023 and is expected to expand by nearly 10 percent annually until 2030.

The tour enterprise Wilderness Travel, based in Berkeley, California, reported a 130 percent increase in bookings for its winter excursions to Iceland, primarily fueled by those seeking the northern lights, consistently each year since 2021. Interest in winter flights to Finland, a prime spot for aurora observation, has surged by more than 70 percent this winter compared to the previous year.

Winter accommodations in coastal Tromso, a favored destination for viewing auroras in northern Norway, increased by 7 percent since 2019, exceeding 202,000 stays from January to April of 2024, according to Visit Norway. Last spring, the Norway-based cruise line Hurtigruten appointed its inaugural “chief aurora hunter,” astronomer Tom Kerss, who will be aboard its increasingly sought-after winter voyages along the Norwegian coastline.

A surge in nature-focused travel, rising fascination with astrotourism, and enhanced comprehension of how and when auroras happen have contributed to the growing popularity of northern lights tourism. Additionally, as some aurora specialists suggest, cellphone cameras have played a significant role in generating many of the vibrant images shared on social media, especially within the last year. Consequently, at the Borealis Basecamp in Fairbanks, Alaska, a resort featuring 40 cabins dedicated to aurora viewing, management notifies guests prior to arrival about the potential disparity they may observe between the real-life display and certain photographs. (The resort has reached full capacity for the ongoing fall-to-spring period.)

“We receive two types of feedback,” explained Adriel Butler, the founder and CEO of Borealis Basecamp. One reaction is disappointment; the other is more complex. “They’ll remark, ‘All the images are enhanced and adjusted with exaggerated representations, but what I will see is genuinely real.’”

To comprehend the mechanics behind the northern lights, and the distinctions in perception between our eyes and cameras, we consulted the experts.

Scott Engle, an assistant professor in astrophysics and planetary science at Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania, characterized the northern lights phenomenon as the visual outcome of particles emitted by the sun interacting with Earth’s atmosphere.

“The sun consistently loses minute portions of its mass, which we refer to as solar wind,” he stated. “These particles collide with the gases present in Earth’s atmosphere, transferring their energy and triggering a glow.”

The sun experiences an 11-year cycle of activity. Over the past year, activity has been elevated, resulting in numerous sightings.

“When solar activity approaches or reaches its peak, the density of these particles in the solar wind escalates,” Mr. Engle remarked.

The auroras manifest within a zone known as an aurora oval, a belt that encircles the Earth’s geomagnetic poles, explained Shannon Schmoll, the director of the Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University, located in East Lansing, Michigan. To the north, this oval stretches above sought-after northern lights locations, such as Canada, Alaska, and Iceland.

“In the event of a more powerful storm, the oval where we observe the aurora shifts further south,” Ms. Schmoll explained.

How has digital photography influenced the fervor for auroras?

Prior to the advent of digital photography, capturing vibrant scenes of the northern lights necessitated extensive knowledge of camera settings, film speeds, excellent timing, and a bit of fortune.

This shifted around 2008 with the arrival of digital cameras, which became increasingly adept at low-light environments, as noted by Lance Keimig, a photographer from Vermont and a partner at National Parks at Night, a company that instructs night photography globally.

The early light-sensitive cameras “permitted individuals already engaging in nighttime photography…”photography to elevate it to the subsequent tier,” Mr. Keimig remarked, noting that the innovation gained popularity among more recreational photographers with the emergence of new camera models around 2012.

The introduction of light-sensitive mobile phone cameras prior to the climax of the ongoing 11-year solar cycle, during which occurrences were reported as far south as Florida, enabled similar technology to reach a broader audience of aurora enthusiasts. In 2018, Google’s Pixel Camera unveiled “night sight,” facilitating clearer pictures in dimly lit environments. The iPhone’s “night mode” followed suit the succeeding year. The advancement of photo-editing applications and lightweight equipment has further enhanced the quality of nighttime photography.

Sean J. Bentley, an associate professor of physics at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., pointed out developments in camera technology that have improved image quality since the preceding solar cycle, which spanned from 2008 to 2019.

“Even as recently as the last peak in early 2014, the majority of digital cameras, including virtually all those on smartphones, were incapable of capturing quality night images of even bright, stable subjects like the moon, let alone auroras,” Mr. Bentley stated in an email.

Gondwana Ecotours, which has been providing aurora excursions in Fairbanks, Alaska, since 2013, noted a 20 percent uptick in reservations for its tours over the past two years.

“When we initially commenced these tours, capturing the aurora with a smartphone was unfeasible,” stated Jared Sternberg, the president. “Now, iPhones and other smartphones can produce more than satisfactory images of the aurora.”

The lens of technology outperforms that of humans regarding nocturnal vision. Essentially, photoreceptors in the eye exist in two primary types, rods and cones. Rods are more responsive to light although they cannot see colors. When there is sufficient illumination, cones engage to identify colors.

“As you realize whenever you rise during the night, we struggle to discern colors well in dark settings,” Mr. Bentley remarked.

Cameras excel at recognizing colors because they can manage longer exposure times than the human eye, as noted by Mr. Engle from Villanova University.

“The digital sensor in your camera is likely significantly more sensitive to red light wavelengths than your eye, and it better captures those extended, redder wavelengths,” Mr. Engle explained.

Additionally, a multitude of other A.I.-driven enhancements in mobile phone cameras can produce images that were once the exclusive domain of high-end cameras, such as taking numerous photos in rapid succession and employing technology to merge them for a sharper, more vibrant, and clearer picture.

So, are those aurora photographs authentic?

Douglas Goodwin, the Fletcher Jones Scholar in Computation and a visiting assistant professor in media studies at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., published an article on this topic in May on the Conversation, a nonprofit news outlet. In his piece, Mr. Goodwin removed enhancements commonly applied by smartphone cameras to create two images of the aurora — one that mirrored the naked eye and another captured by a phone camera.

“Phones do embellish it somewhat, but they are not completely fabricating it,” Mr. Goodwin remarked during an interview. “They’re capturing it better than we can.”

Nori Jemil, a London-based photographer and author of “The Travel Photographer’s Way,” has instructed photography courses in Iceland and Patagonia. She noted that smartphone cameras automatically perform standard postproduction tasks “like photoshopping, stacking images, enhancing colors, and revealing details invisible to the eye. It’s not artificial, but it employs computational algorithms to amalgamate it all for an impressive effect.”

Stay awake for a while. According to NOAA, the lights are most vibrant within an hour or two around midnight.

While on her photographic journeys, Stephanie Vermillion, a Cleveland-based writer specializing in astrotourism and the author of “100 Nights of a Lifetime: The World’s Ultimate Adventures After Dark,” mentioned that she will scan the horizon with her mobile camera if she can’t observe any activity, “because it perceives them better than I do.”

She adjusts the camera to capture in time-lapse mode (for iPhone users, she recommends the app NightCap), then focuses on the display with her own eyes.

“If I’m perpetually adjusting my camera, I’ll spoil the moment,” Ms. Vermillion stated.

Joe Buffalo Child, who provides guided aurora viewing through his business, North Star Adventures, in Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, encourages observers to aim to capture more than a photograph. “Mobile devices can take an enhanced depiction of the aurora with their integrated A.I. features,” he remarked. “However, as we always emphasize on our tours, be sure to appreciate the auroras with your eyes and your spirit.”

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