Aurora Tonight

Whether tonight is worth a look south for the aurora australis — NOAA's space-weather model, the cloud forecast and the hours of darkness over Denmark's south coast.

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Town Tools builds free, public tools for Denmark and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Tonight

Quiet tonight

Activity looks low. A faint glow is always possible, but tonight isn’t a likely one.

Skies look mostly clear over the dark hours.

Overhead chance now

NOAA’s modelled chance of aurora directly overhead

3.7

Expected Kp tonight

Planetary activity — higher means a stronger, wider display

Darkest 19:20–04:40

Skies

Night

Dark hours

Expected Kp

Sky

Tue, 13 Oct

19:20–04:40

Clear

Wed, 14 Oct

19:30–04:40

3.7

Cloudy

Thu, 15 Oct

19:30–04:40

2.7

Clear

If you go out

Face due south over the ocean. A south-facing beach or headland away from town lights — the Ocean Beach or Lights Beach car parks work well — gives the clearest horizon.

Try a long exposure on a phone or camera first: at this latitude the camera picks up the colour well before your eyes do.

Give your eyes about 20 minutes to adjust to the dark, and keep bright screens dimmed.

The moon matters here more than under the auroral oval — a bright moon washes out a faint southern glow, so dark-moon nights are best.

Winter nights on the coast are cold and can turn squally — dress warm, and be patient: displays come and go in bursts over hours.

Worth knowing

The southern lights, low on the southern horizon

Denmark faces the Southern Ocean, which is exactly what an aurora chaser wants — but at this latitude the aurora australis sits low in the southern sky, not overhead. It takes a strong geomagnetic storm (roughly Kp 6 or more) for a glow to show from the south coast, and a severe one for the tall red and green beams people photographed here in May 2024.

Your camera sees it before you do

From the WA south coast most displays start as a faint grey-pink smudge to the naked eye. A phone or camera on a long exposure picks up the colour well before your eyes adjust — if the photo shows pink or green above the southern horizon, stay out; it may build.

Winter nights and the solar maximum

June to August brings Denmark's longest, darkest nights, and the current solar cycle is still near its 2025–26 peak, so strong storms arrive more often than in an average year. The two together make this the best stretch in a decade to catch the aurora from the south coast.