I'm going to NZ next week for 10 days, south island, mostly around queenstown and wanaka, will have a car so hope to get out to some dark remote skies. How common and likely are aurora around there? I have no idea, is it like a nightly thing or a few times a year thing? i've found lots of websites that say when the best time to go is, which unfortunately isn't now, but overall, I can't see any info about how likely you are to see some aurora activity if you have say 3 days to look. Also when is the best time of the night to look for it? after sunset or before dawn or middle of the night?
I found this website,
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/pmapS.html this seems to suggest pretty low activity, does this mean it's barely noticable? or not naked eye at all? or should be noticable from a dark enough site?
Thanks.