How Can I See the Northern Lights in the Farthest North Tip of Michigan's Upper Peninsula?

[DarioAlbahari]

How can I increase my chances to see the Northern Lights from Copper Harbor, on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan? I've seen on maps that it has barely any light pollution, and I've heard that to see the Northern Lights in the UP, you need a KP index of 4, but is there any way to see the Northern Lights in the Upper Peninsula even if the KP index is less than 4? 3,2 maybe?

[Sam Warfel]

4 would probably be the bare minimum KP required. I don’t think it’s possible to see it there lower than that. My advice is wait for a 5+.
You can also sometimes glimpse things not visible with the naked eye by using a long-exposure photograph on a digital camera, if you have one. 

[DarioAlbahari]

👍got it

[dynastyll]

7 hours ago, Orneno said:

4 would probably be the bare minimum KP required. I don’t think it’s possible to see it there lower than that. My advice is wait for a 5+.
You can also sometimes glimpse things not visible with the naked eye by using a long-exposure photograph on a digital camera, if you have one. 

You can see it at a 3 on quite a bit of occasions, I've seen it in ND at a 3- on a few different occasions.

[DarioAlbahari]

ok

@dynastyll         What latitude did you see the Northern Lights in North Dakota with a Kp3? 

[Vancanneyt Sander]

Keep in mind that Kp is only an global indicator for geomagnetic activity. Kp index is also from the past three hour window, unless threshold has been reached within current window. So it can always happen that for example Kp is 3 with a small substorm happening that gives a local K-indice of 5. That’s why (local) magnetometers are the best way to see if there’s a real chance because you’ll see there if a substorm is onset or not. 

[DarioAlbahari]

thx that makes sense