Aurora Sighting Certificate
Saw the northern lights? Turn the night into a keepsake. Tell us where and when, and we'll look up the real geomagnetic data for that night (the Kp index, the storm level and the moon) and put it on a certificate you can download, print or share.
The records go back to 1932, so it works for a sighting last night or one from decades ago.
How it works
The aurora is driven by geomagnetic activity, and scientists have measured it every three hours since 1932 with the planetary Kp index. When you enter a place and date, we take the night from 6 PM to 6 AM local time and look up the Kp for each 3-hour period. Your certificate shows the night's peak, the Kp at the moment you saw it (if you add a time), the NOAA storm level and how much the moon was lit.
If you saw it after midnight, enter the time: a sighting at 1 AM on 11 October belongs to the night of 10–11 October, and the certificate takes care of that.
What your numbers mean
- Kp 0–2 (quiet): the aurora stays close to the Arctic and Antarctic circles.
- Kp 3–4 (unsettled to active): good displays across northern Scandinavia, Iceland, Alaska and northern Canada.
- Kp 5 (G1 minor storm): the aurora moves south, often visible in Scotland and the northern US.
- Kp 6–7 (G2–G3): visible across much of the UK, northern Europe and the northern half of the US.
- Kp 8–9 (G4–G5): rare, historic storms seen far south, like 10 May 2024.
Learn more in our guide to reading the Kp index, or relive the G3 storm of 10 October 2026.
Giving it as a gift? Print it and frame it next to a custom star map of the same night, or browse more ideas in our northern lights gift guide.
Frequently asked questions
How can I find out the Kp index on the night I saw the northern lights?
Enter the place and date above. The tool looks up the official planetary Kp for every 3-hour period of that night from the GFZ Potsdam archive, with the most recent nights filled in from NOAA.
How far back does it go?
To 1 January 1932, when the planetary Kp record begins. That includes famous storms like March 1989, the Halloween storms of 2003 and May 2024.
Is it free? Do you store my details?
It's free, as many times as you like. The certificate is drawn in your browser and nothing you type is saved on our servers. The share link simply contains the details you entered, so whoever opens it sees the same certificate.
Why does my certificate say "partial data"?
For the last day or two, some 3-hour Kp values aren't published yet. Come back a day later and the full night will be there.
What does the Kp number mean?
Kp measures global geomagnetic activity from 0 to 9. Kp 5 and above is a geomagnetic storm on NOAA's G-scale, from G1 (Kp 5) up to G5 (Kp 9), when the aurora reaches lower latitudes than usual. A "+" or "−" means a third of a step above or below.
Kp data: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam (CC BY 4.0), and NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Place search: Open-Meteo.