Worth Going Out

Northern lights in Inverness in August

Scotland, United Kingdom. Figures for August 2027, calculated by us. Times are local.

Go

Yes, with shorter nights. In mid-August the sky is dark enough for the aurora from about 22:48 to 03:54, 5 hours a night.

Darkness through the month

1 August: 3 hours of darkness.
15 August: 5 hours.
End of August: 6.8 hours. The nights are getting longer through the month.

“Dark” here means the Sun is more than 12° below the horizon. Faint aurora needs a darker sky; a strong display can show earlier in the evening.

The Moon in August 2027

New Moon: 2 August 2027. The week around it has the darkest skies.
Full Moon: 17 August 2027. A bright Moon makes the aurora look fainter, though it is still there.
New Moon: 31 August 2027. The week around it has the darkest skies.

What to expect

The aurora appears only on active nights, and only where it is clear. Plan several nights and check the forecast each day: how to read it.
Scotland only sees the aurora during stronger geomagnetic storms, low in the northern sky. Treat it as a bonus, not a reason to travel; watch the NOAA forecast and look north from somewhere dark.

Green and pink northern lights low over a dark horizon, partly behind clouds — The northern lights over Baltasound, Shetland, Scotland. Photo: Mike Pennington, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Get a note when it is worth going out

A short email before an eclipse, a strong meteor shower or a dark week worth planning for. No more than a few a month.

Inverness: the whole year. All northern lights destinations.

Sources

Darkness, sunrise and Moon phases: our calculation, Astronomy Engine 2.1.19 (MIT licence). How we worked it out.
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, Tips on viewing the aurora.