Northern Lights with night vision?

[Trentend]

Living North of the border I often get text alerts about pending potential views of the Northern lights in the central belt but realistically will never see anything due to light pollution. Not sure if this would be possible through NV with an appropriate filter?

[Peter Drew]

It is a fact that many auroral displays are below the threshold of naked eye visibility.  These can readily be revealed via a modern sensitive camera.  Worth trying when there is a significant alert.     🙂

[PeterW]

The main visible colour is green, though there are reds which NV would be better suited to see. I’d have a look at the emission lines that predominate in aurorae and whether you've got any filters that sort of help remove other colours and give it a shot. Looks like a 600nm long pass would help? https://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Magnetosphere/tour/tour_earth_magnetosphere_09.html

Though you’d want to be away from the worst of city light pollution and you’d want to work a 1x or 3x to have a nice big field of view to see any structure more clearly.

Peter