# Free northern lights course: from the Sun to your first aurora

> A free northern lights course in short chapters: what the aurora is, how to read the Kp index and the colours, and what climate change changes. NOAA data.

Canonical: https://kpforecast.com/northern-lights-course/
Updated on: 2026-10-09

Short chapters that explain the aurora the way a first-time chaser needs it: what it is, what the numbers on this site mean, and how to plan a night. The first chapter is open. The rest is free with an account.

## How the northern lights course works

Each chapter answers one question in about five minutes of reading, with the figures taken from NOAA SWPC, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency and linked at the end. Chapter one is open to everyone. The later chapters ask for a free account: one email, no card, and the course remembers where the reader stopped. The same account will unlock the storm alerts when they arrive.
The course was written for the person who runs this site, who has never seen the aurora and wanted to understand the numbers before booking a trip. The [data and method page](https://kpforecast.com/data-and-method/) has the technical version of everything the chapters explain in plain words.

## Northern lights course chapters

- 1 · [What the aurora is and why it has colours](https://kpforecast.com/northern-lights-course/what-is-the-aurora/)The Sun, the solar wind, the magnetic field, and why green is common and red is rare. Open to everyone.
- 2 · [Reading the Kp index, the bar colours and the solar wind](https://kpforecast.com/northern-lights-course/kp-index-and-colours/)What each Kp level means for a place, what density, speed and Bz tell you, and how to read this site's dashboard in thirty seconds.Free account
- 3 · [Climate change and the northern lights](https://kpforecast.com/northern-lights-course/climate-change/)What climate change does not change (the Sun), what it does change (your sky and your trip), and what research says about the upper atmosphere.Free account

Chapters on planning the first trip, photographing the aurora and reading the 27-day outlook follow as they pass the editorial review.

## Who the northern lights course is for

Anyone who has looked at a Kp forecast and not known whether 3 was good or bad. The chapters assume no physics and no travel experience. A reader who already knows what a coronal mass ejection is will find the pace slow and can jump to the [method page](https://kpforecast.com/data-and-method/), where the formulas and the sources live.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is the northern lights course free?

Yes. Chapter one is open without an account. Chapters two onwards ask for a free account with an email address and no card. The account is also what will carry the storm alerts when that feature is live.

### How long does the northern lights course take?

About five minutes per chapter. There are three chapters at launch, so a quarter of an hour covers the basics: what the aurora is, how to read the Kp index and the dashboard, and what climate change does to the view.

### Where do the facts in the northern lights course come from?

From NOAA SWPC, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, with the page used linked at the end of each chapter and the date it was checked. Figures that come from this site's own calculation, such as the Kp a place needs, are marked as such.

### Does the northern lights course tell me when to travel?

The chapters explain the season, the dark hours and the Kp a place needs, which is the knowledge behind a decision. The live forecast on this site and the destination pages give the figures for the actual dates.

### Why does the northern lights course ask for an account?

So the course can remember where a reader stopped and so the same login can later deliver storm alerts. Nothing is sold through the account, and the login is handled by Clerk, a dedicated authentication service, so this site never stores a password.

### Who wrote the northern lights course?

The person who runs kpforecast.com, a Dominican living in Barcelona who has never seen the aurora and built the site to understand the numbers first. Each chapter passes an editorial check against its sources before publication.

## Sources

- [NOAA SWPC, Aurora](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/aurora), checked on 2026-10-09
- [NOAA SWPC, NOAA space weather scales](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation), checked on 2026-10-09