Clouds are often considered the enemies for aurora watchers because they form in the lower part of our atmosphere and so can get between us and the dancing lights. But on our Sky Holiday trips to see the Northern Lights over the years, we’ve found that broken cloud can sometimes add to the beauty of the aurora. The drifting clouds down in the troposphere can serve as dark punctuations to the dancing bands of light in the ionosphere high above, as shown in this time-lapse video of the Northern Lights over Porjus, Sweden by Olivier Staiger.