Question about Northern lights

which informed me that you can only see the lights between the hours from around 6pm up to around midnight

Clearly not so, as you have just discovered for yourself. But the rotation of the earth means that this tends to be much the best part of the day for them.

I'd obviously rather not stay up all night every night in the hope of seeing them.

Your main issue is getting sufficiently clear skies. If there is a forecast that the skies will clear in the small hours, or if you've had clear skies all evening with no sight of them yet, then you might want to be up in the small hours, if you value a sighting sufficiently.

The northern lights tour operators in Tromso often drive inland to get behind the mountains, maybe even close to the Swedish border, to have a better chance of finding clear skies. Though that may not help if the wind is in the east, so access to some meteorological materials would assist you.

The Northern Lights are not German trains. They don't operate on a schedule or are even predictable in any way. I have seen them on nights the websites said there was a 0% chance, and failed to see them on high chance days. Even with the issue of clear skies mentioned by #1

Hmnn, but I didn't say that did I...

It's rather a shame that some people will always look at a post and come up with the most extreme take on it so they can criticize the poster.

Now I've read another article saying the highest chances of sightings are between 6pm and 1am.

Hey Matt,

Have you ended up doing this trip yet? We've decided sort of spontaneously that we're going to head to Tromso next month.

Like you, we'd rather check the aurora out ourselves if possible, rather than going on an expensive tour (and to be fair, we're both tour guides ourselves - so we know the game)...

I read something about sledding, snow mobiles or a cruise - but prices don't seem to be readily available. We were also thinking of just hiring a car - but where to drive?

If you've already been, would appreciate any advice you have for us...

We also haven't booked accommodation yet - we're kind of on a budget, but this can stretch within reason.

Thanks!

Hey globetrotter,

We are off in late February actually so a little while off yet...looks like you will be before me.

All the activities seem to be very pricey...between around 160-220 euros mark....that seems to be for around an hours dog sledding or similar on a snow mobile. So we just went for the dog sledding...but it all seems a big rip off.

We are going to hire a car as well and I heard to drive inland if it's really cloudy, over the other side of the mountains where you have a slightly better chance of seeing the lights. Our plan is to park up somewhere dark and wait in the car until we hopefully see something.

The Lyngen alps look a pretty cool destination not far from Tromso also.

What we decided was to stay outside of Tromso, to avoid the light pollution. I think we are about 50 mins drive from the city. Also we got a place with a kitchen so we can load up the car and cook.

Anyway, hope you have a good one...I'm from NZ too.