Chad Blakley / Lights Over Lapland

The northern lights shimmer in the skies above Abisko National Park in Sweden on March 3. "In addition to the northern lights, you can also see a massive fireball streak across the sky," photographer Chad Blakley writes. "It was a fantastic night!"

It's prime time for the northern lights, and particularly for the far northern lights.

"I believe I just saw the most amazing aurora display I have ever seen," Chad Blakley, the photographer behind Lights Over Lapland, wrote from Sweden over the weekend. "I would send you more images, but I have to go back outside and take a few more photos first." (You can see the results in the time-lapse video below.)

Places like Sweden and Norway, Iceland and Finland, Alaska and Canada's Northwest Territories are prime viewing areas for the northern lights, because that's where the interactions between Earth's poles and the sun's geomagnetic storms are strongest. The fact that the sun's 11-year activity cycle is close to its predicted maximum should be adding to the show, although the storm activity has been mysteriously low so far. 

There's another factor that makes this month favorable for seeing the northern lights: Experts say that March and September, around the time of the year's two equinoxes, are just right for aurora-watching because the skies stay dark for a relatively long time, and yet the weather is relatively mild. December can get pretty chilly up north, and June is the time of the midnight sun — which is not conducive to seeing the aurora's delicate greenish glow.

Darkness is the key to seeing the aurora, whether you're in Abisko National Park in Sweden, or in Albany, N.Y. Stake out a place that's far from city lights with good northern exposure. The thinner and clearer the air, the better — which means you should be up on a mountain rather than down in a valley. The wee hours of the morning are the best time of night for spotting the northern lights.

If you're not in the prime aurora zone, spotting a good display is a matter of good timing, good luck and location, location, location.

Auroral displays are seldom seen much farther south than the northern tier of U.S. states, but every once in a while there's a strong storm that lights up the skies in America's midsection. To find out when a storm is brewing, check in with SpaceWeather.com, the University of Alaska's Aurora Forecast website and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, plus the prediction center's Facebook page and its Ovation aurora forecasting app. The Yukon Territory's Northern Lights Centre provides additional tips for aurora-watchers. You can also follow @Aurora_Alerts, @AuroraMax and @AuroraWatch on Twitter. 

If you live too far south to see the lights with your own eyes, don't despair: You'll find plenty of auroral pictures in SpaceWeather.com's gallery, and Vimeo has lots of videos to show you. Got a great picture of the northern (or southern) lights? Feel free to share it via our FirstPerson photo-upload page. 

More auroral glories:

• A night's worth of aurora in a minute
• Top spots to see the northern lights
• PhotoBlog's northern-lights archive
• Slideshow: Aurora's greatest hits

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Ariel Schalit / AP

Locusts land on a sand dune in Negev Desert, southern Israel, near the border with Egypt, March 5. A swarm of locusts crossed into Israel from neighboring Egypt Monday, raising fears that Israel could be hit with a biblical plague ahead of the Passover holiday. Israel sent out planes to spray pesticides over agricultural fields to prevent damage by the small swarm of about 2,000 locusts, said Dafna Yurista, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Ministry. The ministry also set up an emergency hotline and asked Israelis to be vigilant in reporting locust sightings.

Scientists can learn a lot about the locusts swarming over Egypt and Israel just by looking at the pictures. Keith Cressman, senior locust forecasting officer for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, is based hundreds of miles away in Rome — but he can tell that these particular bugs may be on their last legs.

"The few good pics I have seen of the locusts show that they are a brick red rather than pinkish," Cressman told NBC News in an email. "Both colors indicate they are immature adults, but the dark color suggests they are old and tired rather than young and hungry. Hence, the infestations arriving in northeast Egypt and Israel will probably come to nothing." That's the good news. The bad news is that other locust swarms could pose a more serious threat to the region's agriculture later this year. To get the details, check out the full story in Cosmic Log.

Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / Reuters

A Palestinian farmer displays locusts at a farm in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, March 5. Palestinian officials said locusts had not hit Gaza in several decades and numbers of locusts that reached Gaza on Tuesday were small but the Agriculture Ministry said they have taken all necessary steps to fight it if larger numbers hit the Gaza Strip.

Amir Cohen / Reuters

A swarm of locusts fly near Kmehin in Israel's Negev desert.

Ariel Schalit / AP

A locust on a sand dune in Negev Desert, southern Israel.

More about locusts:

• Locusts hit Egypt and Israel before Passover
• Gaddafi's fall leads to desert locusts' rise
• Locusts illustrate the science of swarming

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI

The planet Venus sparkles as a bright point of light, seen through the rings of Saturn, in this image from NASA's Cassini orbiter. Venus is the speck just above and to the right of the image's center. The picture was captured on Nov. 10, 2012.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been sending us eye-filling pictures of the giant planet Saturn for almost nine years, but every so often, the camera also sees the small fry of the solar system — such as Venus, which shines in the two latest offerings from the Cassini imaging team.

One of the photos, captured last November, shows Venus as seen through Saturn's gossamer rings, from a distance of 884 million miles (1.42 billion kilometers, or 9.51 AU). The other picture highlights Venus as a "morning star," hanging just beyond Saturn's edge and next to the giant planet's G ring. Venus was 849 million miles (1.37 billion kilometers, or 9.13 AU) away when that picture was taken in January, according to the imaging team. 

From such a distance, Venus looks like nothing more than a bright speck. Which isn't surprising, considering that Earth takes on pretty much the same appearance from Saturn, even though it's slightly bigger. The mind-boggling perspectives involved in space vistas led the late astronomer Carl Sagan to call our home planet a "pale blue dot," and I guess that makes Venus a pale yellow dot.

Venus looks lovely from millions of miles away, but it's not a place you'd want to visit, Carolyn Porco, the leader of the imaging team at the Colorado-based Space Science Institute, said in an email:

"Along with Mercury, Earth, and Mars, Venus is one of the rocky 'terrestrial' planets in the solar system that orbit relatively close to the sun," she wrote. "It has an atmosphere of carbon dioxide that reaches nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius), a surface pressure 100 times that of Earth's, and is covered in thick, white sulfuric acid clouds, making it very bright. Despite a thoroughly hellish environment that would melt lead, Venus is considered a twin of our planet because of their similar sizes, masses, rocky compositions and close orbits.

"Think about Venus the next time you find yourself reveling in the thriving flora, balmy breezes, and temperate climate of a lovely day on Earth, and remember: You could be somewhere else!"

NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI

Dawn on Saturn is greeted across the vastness of interplanetary space by the morning star, Venus, in this image from Cassini. Venus appears just off the edge of the planet, in the upper part of the image, directly above the white streak of Saturn's G ring. Lower down, Saturn's E ring makes an appearance. A bright spot near the E ring is a distant star. This picture was captured on Jan. 4, at a distance of about 371,000 miles (597,000 kilometers) from Saturn.

Slideshow: Best of Cassini

The Cassini spacecraft is sending back unprecedented imagery of Saturn, its rings and its moons. Click "Launch" to see some of the greatest hits from the Cassini mission.

Launch slideshow

More about Saturn and Venus:

• Space missions deliver treats from Saturn and beyond
• Solar particles moving at incredible speed near Saturn
• Venus can take on a 'cometlike' atmosphere
• Flash interactive: Guide to the new solar system 

Slideshow: Month in Space

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Chad Blakley / Lights Over Lapland

The northern lights vie with a waxing moon over Sweden's Abisko National Park on Monday night.

One look at SpaceWeather.com's aurora gallery will tell you that February has been a very good month for auroral displays in northern latitudes, and an upswing in solar activity promises more to come.

One of the hot spots is Sweden's Abisko National Park, which is the favorite hangout for Chad Blakley of Lights Over Lapland. "We have seen powerful auroras in the sky above Abisko for 13 nights in a row, and it looks like there are more to come!" he wrote in an email Tuesday. "Last night I witnessed one of the finest aurora displays I have seen in many months. February 2013 is turning out to be one of the best months for aurora watching I have ever seen!"

You can get a sense of how Blakley's nights have been going by taking a minute to watch Blakley's time-lapse video below. But don't stop there: I'm also including a time-lapse from Helge Mortensen, a photographer based in Tromso, Norway, and from Oli Haukur and the OZZO Photography team in Iceland.

Scandinavia, Alaska and northern Canada are all hot spots for the northern lights this time of year, even though it gets chilly at night. The auroral displays might dip farther south if we get a nice geomagnetic storm coming our way, and the solar weather outlook suggests that could happen. A new sunspot region known as AR 1678 has cropped up, and SpaceWeather.com says this region could give rise to "a significant solar flare."

Check out the usual places for space weather updates, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center as well as the center's Facebook page and its Ovation aurora forecast chart. You'll also want to keep tabs on the Canadian Space Agency's AuroraMAX website — and the Lights Over Lapland Facebook page, where you'll find an awesome image of the aurora glowing beside a moon halo.

More auroral glories:

• Northern lights boosted by 'The Blob'
• PhotoBlog's northern-lights archive
• Slideshow: Aurora's greatest hits

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Thomas Kast

The northern lights glow over a snowy Finnish landscape in a photo taken on the night of Jan. 16-17 by Thomas Kast. Watch the time-lapse video on Vimeo.

"The Blob" from the sun has come and gone, sparking nothing more than beautiful views of the northern lights — and there could be more blobs to come.

This week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center reported that a "plasma blob" of electrically charged particles was thrown out from the sun in Earth's direction — but that the outburst, also known as a coronal mass ejection or CME, wouldn't disrupt satellite systems or electrical power grids when it swept past us on Thursday.

The blob did register on the geomagnetic scale, but well below hazardous levels, just as the center predicted. And although there were no flashy light shows reported in America's Lower 48 states, the northern lights were dancing in high-latitude regions. Thomas Kast caught his first aurora of the new year in the skies over Rokua in Finland.

Kast said the vantage point for the picture you see here is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his home — and the temperatures dipped down to 16 below zero Fahrenheit (-27 degrees Celsius). "I spent more than four hours at that spot," Kast said. "It takes time, but it's so rewarding."

If you like the picture above, you'll love the video version that Kast has just posted to his Vimeo gallery. To see more of Kast's photos, check out his Facebook page as well as his posting to SpaceWeather.com's aurora gallery.

Göran Strand saw this week's auroral show from the Kall area in the Swedish municipality of Åre, where the temperature was 11 below zero F (-24 degrees C). "When we arrived at the location and stepped out of the car, a moose stepped out of the forest and looked at us, and it looked a bit surprised finding us there in the middle of the night," Strand said in an email.

"It turned out to be a fantastic night with a half moon that lit up the landscape in a lovely way," Strand told SpaceWeather.com." In the background you can the mountain Åreskutan, the biggest ski resort in Sweden."

For more astrophotography from Strand, click on over to his Astrofotografen website and his Facebook page.

Goran Strand

Swedish astrophotographer Goran Strand captured this view of an aurora lighting up the night sky above a moonlit landscape. The constellation Orion, the Pleiades and the planet Jupiter also gleam in the skies above.

Stian Rekdal

The northern lights compete with the city lights of Ålesund, Norway, in a picture taken by Stian Rekdal.

Meanwhile, in Norway, Stian Rekdal lucked into a glittering photograph of natural and artificial lights.

"It was taken from the viewpoint of Fjellstua (literal translation, 'the mountain lodge'), which is approximately 400 feet above the town of Ålesund," Rekdal wrote in an email. "Aurorae are not as common here as farther north. This part of Norway is also prone to cloudy weather, further decreasing the odds of spotting them. So last night was a rare treat."

Check out more of Rekdal's aurora imagery at the 500px photo website, or the Vimeo video portal. As a bonus, you can feast your eyes on Rekdal's Vimeo video below — but be sure to watch it at full-screen and high-resolution. Then click through our slideshow of the greatest hits from the northern (and southern) lights.

Slideshow: Lights in the sky

Click through stunning images of the auroral displays created by geomagnetic storms.

Launch slideshow

The Space Weather Prediction Center says that two more coronal mass ejections are heading toward Earth — but like the earlier plasma blob, these outbursts "are not expected to be very strong." To find out where auroral displays are expected to glow, check NOAA's Ovation chart, the prediction center's website, the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute's aurora indicator or SpaceWeather.com. And if you snap a great picture of the aurora, feel free to share it via the Cosmic Log Facebook page or NBC News' FirstPerson photo upload page.

Update for 3 a.m. ET Jan. 21: Aurora photographer Chad Blakley took the stunning still imagery he captured on Jan. 19 and assembled into this must-see time-lapse video on Vimeo. "The solar blob you wrote about last week has made its way to Earth!" he wrote in an email. For more, check out Blakley's Lights Over Lapland website and Facebook page.

More auroral glories:

• Top spots to see the northern lights
• Video: Northern lights captured on camera
• Cosmic Log archive on auroras

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.