Seeing the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis in North Iowa is not a common event, but it is so sweet when we do get to see them. I won't go in to all of the details of what causes the auroras, (you can do your own research) except to say that accurate predictions of more than about 45 minutes are difficult. There are numerous Aurora Alerts web sites, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages where you can get alerts and notices of Aurora activity. Of course it needs to be dark and few or no clouds to the north. If there is a bright Moon it can wash out out the sky and make event bright Northern Lights difficult to see.
As you look at the charts and graphs on the web sites there are a few things that you need to know to determine if the lights are a possibility in your area.
A 'Kp index' of 6 (G2) or higher is usually necessary for North Iowa.
On the Bz chart a negative number or 'South' is a good thing. -3 is better than -2.
Watch for indicators that it is possible to see Aurora at middle latitudes.
Many sites display the time zone as UTC or UT for Universal Time. At this time of year Iowa is -5 UT. So 05:00UT or 5:00 AM would be Midnight here in Central Daylight time (CDT). 02:00UT would be 9:00 PM the previous day. When we are no longer on daylight savings time (CST)  Iowa will be -6UT.

A few Aurora Alerts Web Sites:

• Aurora Forecast
• Softserve News Aurora Forecast
• Space Weather Live 
• Aurora Alerts - Facebook site
• Great Lakes Aurora Hunters FB Group (request to join)
• Aurora Alerts on Twitter
• KP Aurora Alerts on Twitter
• Long list of Aurora Alerts sites

Photographing the Aurora:
Put the camera on a sturdy tripod. Full manual settings - manual focus on the lens focused on infinity or a very distant object, manual exposure. ISO from 400-3200 depending on how bright the lights, f/stop 2.8 or wider if your lens will allow, exposure time will vary from a few to several seconds. You'll have to experiment. Every night will be different. Sometimes they are barely visible to the naked eye, and can only be seen well in the camera with a longer time exposure. On rare occasions they are bright enough to shoot a video. If you see Northern Lights don't expect them to last long. They could last only a few minutes or several hours. There is no way to know. Or they could start and stop multiple times during the night or in to the early morning.
Good Luck. I hope that you get to see and photograph the Northern Lights!
- by Bruce McKee

Landscape photographers want highly detailed sharp images with everything in focus. The best way to achieved this is by  focus stacking. The lens is sharpest when it is stopped down one or two stops from its widest aperture. If you have a 16-35/F4 lens like I do, the sharpest images are produced when the aperture is set between 5.6 and F8.  Beyond that the image can get  soft due to diffraction... [Read the rest of the article here...]
- Article by Harsha Jayawardena

On a recent trip to Yellowstone National Park we experimented with time lapse photos of the night sky. The combination that seemed to work best for me was locking down the camera on a sturdy tripod, using a shutter release cable or remote shutter release trigger, 11mm lens, ISO 6400, f/4, 30 second exposure, and long exposure compensation (a custom setting on Canon). If I had a f/2.8 lens that was wide enough I could have used ISO 3200. In post processing of the RAW file with Lightroom 4, I slid the color temperature toward the blue to get better color in the sky, lightened the shadows a bit, and applied a little noise reduction.
[Submitted by Bruce McKee]

Welcome to the North Iowa Photo Club blog. Our club meets at Rolling Acres Christian Reformed Church, 340 19th Street S.W., Mason City, IA the
third Thursday of the month from 7 – 9 PM. Everyone is invited to learn about photographic techniques, how to operate your camera and to view photos taken by other club members.  Our Blog is a place to learn about club meetings and to share photo tips. Bookmark the page or save it to your favorites so that you can easily find your way back here. Please also request to be added to our email list so that we can send you updates about club meetings (such as photo outings held at regular meeting times).