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Credit: Redtea \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Photographers may have more than fireworks to capture this Fourth of July weekend, as several sun flares could mean a natural night sky light show over the next few days. Heightened solar activity could increase the odds of seeing the aurora farther south than usual over the weekend.<\/p>\n
The sun emitted several flares over a 24-hour period on June 30. Those flares could potentially spark an aurora this weekend, as early as tonight, with heightened chances for an aurora continuing into the weekend.<\/p>\n
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s three-day geomagnetic forecast predicts<\/a> that the highest levels of activity could potentially hit a KP6, a moderate G2-level storm, around 18:00 ET today. The levels remain above a KP4 for more than 24 hours, however.<\/p>\n NOAA, however, notes that this particular solar activity makes the forecast unpredictable<\/a>, and the timing could come earlier or later than expected. The sun unleashed 10 flares over a 24-hour period, and how those flares interact makes the aurora even more challenging to predict than usual.<\/p>\n The organization notes that there is \u201csome uncertainty\u201d on the timing<\/a> due to that unpredictability \u2013 if the solar activity hits during daylight hours, the aurora would not be visible.<\/p>\n With the timing uncertain, photographers should check NOAA\u2019s short-term forecast<\/a> \u2013 which tends to be more accurate than the three-day forecast \u2013 before losing sleep.<\/p>\n If the conditions remain favorable, northern US states and Canada could see some aurora activity:<\/p>\n Credit: NOAA<\/p>\n The UK’s MET Office<\/a> is also monitoring the activity and notes a potential aurora, but says that “any aurora is likely to be restricted to the northern parts of the UK and similar latitudes.”<\/p>\n Thankfully, photographing the aurora is a little like photographing a fireworks show<\/a>: Bring a tripod<\/a> and prepare to use slower shutter speeds<\/a>.<\/p>\n You may also like…<\/p>\n Prep for the potential show by learning how to photograph the northern lights<\/a>. Even if the northern lights don’t show, you could still photograph the stars<\/a> and other night sky phenomena this July<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[228298,33841,54836,111,139,8251,69,147,31720,392,252807],"class_list":["post-507117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-aurora-activity","tag-fireworks","tag-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-noaa","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-solar-activity","tag-space","tag-sun-flares"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/48a879d232eb272eb06dfa976b75dad5.jpeg\"\/)
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