A live all-sky aurora camera streaming in real time from the high Arctic. When geomagnetic activity is elevated, this camera captures the full sweep of the auroral oval as it passes overhead.
Watching the Aurora From Anywhere on Earth
For most people, seeing the Northern Lights in person requires a plane ticket, careful planning, and a good deal of luck with local weather. These live cameras change that. Operated by aurora enthusiasts, resort webcam networks, and research stations, they give anyone with an internet connection a real-time view of conditions beneath the auroral oval — at no cost and from anywhere in the world.
Each camera below is positioned at a high-latitude location with a clear view of the northern sky. When geomagnetic activity is elevated and skies are clear at the camera site, you will see the aurora in real time — sometimes gently glowing, sometimes erupting into full-sky curtains that move and pulse as you watch. Combine these live feeds with Solar Ruler's globe to understand exactly why the camera is active when it is, and which part of the auroral oval the camera is sitting beneath.
All Live Cameras
Click any camera to make it the featured stream above.
When to Tune In
The single most important factor is geomagnetic activity. Watch Solar Ruler's globe in the hours before dark — when the green auroral oval is wide and bright over the camera's region, conditions are favorable and the stream is worth watching closely. A Kp index of 3 or above is generally enough to produce visible aurora at the latitudes these cameras are positioned.
Darkness is equally critical. All of these cameras are in the Arctic, and during the summer months — roughly May through July — the sky never gets dark enough to see aurora, even during strong geomagnetic storms. The aurora season runs from late August through early April. Within that window, the hours between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time at each camera site are statistically the most productive.
Clear skies at the camera location are the final variable. A strong aurora covered by clouds will show nothing but a black screen. That is one reason multiple cameras from different locations are valuable — while one site might be overcast, another a few hundred miles away might be perfectly clear and showing spectacular activity.
Using These Cameras With Solar Ruler
The live cameras and the Solar Ruler globe are designed to complement each other. The globe shows you the big picture — where the auroral oval is, how strong it is, and whether your region or the camera regions are under active aurora. The live cameras then show you exactly what that activity looks like in real time, on the ground, through a lens pointed at the sky.
A practical workflow: open Solar Ruler's globe and note which longitude sectors are under the brightest part of the green band. Then select the live camera whose location sits closest to that sector. If the globe shows strong activity over northern Europe, the Apukka Resort camera is an excellent choice. If activity is concentrated over the polar regions, any of the higher-latitude cameras will give you the best view.
Aurora is a dynamic phenomenon that changes by the minute. A display that looks quiet on the globe can erupt dramatically in the span of a few seconds during a substorm. These live cameras capture those moments as they happen — making the combination of Solar Ruler's data and a live feed one of the most effective ways to follow aurora activity without leaving your home.