A northern lights screensaver with stars and hills

Screensavers by Zaweba has one called Aurora. Curtains of northern lights ripple over a starry sky above a dark line of hills, and you choose the colours, the brightness, the speed and whether the hills are there at all. It's original, drawn by Zaweba's own code, and runs offline.

Few people get to see the real northern lights. A screensaver is a poor substitute, of course, but a well made one captures the slow, shifting way the light moves, and that's the part that makes it relaxing.

Choosing the colours

There are four colour settings. Green with violet is closest to what most photographs show: a bright green curtain with violet edges. Teal and blue is cooler and calmer. Rose and violet gives the rarer pink aurora you sometimes see in pictures from further south. Changing slowly drifts between colours over time, so the sky never looks quite the same twice.

If you're unsure, start with green and violet, watch it for a minute in the live preview, then try changing slowly to see which you'd rather live with.

Brightness, speed and hills

Brightness and speed each run from 1 to 10. A low brightness keeps the aurora faint, which suits a dark bedroom or a screen you don't want glaring at you in the evening. Higher brightness makes the curtains vivid, better in daylight. Speed sets how fast the light ripples. Real auroras can move quickly, but most people prefer a slow, rolling motion for a screensaver.

The hills are a dark silhouette along the bottom of the screen. With them on, you feel as if you're standing somewhere looking up. With them off, you get only sky and light, which can look better stretched across several monitors.

Setting it up

Open Screensavers by Zaweba, select Aurora and adjust the settings while the preview follows. Press Preview full screen to check it at full size. Then press Use this screensaver. The app builds it into your profile without needing administrator rights and opens Windows' Screen Saver Settings, where you pick it, set the minutes of idle time and decide about the password on resume.

If you tweak the colours later, the next time it runs it uses them. There's nothing to rebuild.

Think about where the screen is when you set the brightness. In a room you'll be sleeping in, a lower brightness with the hills on looks like a window on a dark night. In a bright office the same settings may look washed out, so turn it up.

Across several screens

Aurora is a natural fit for a wide setup. Choose one stretched across all monitors and the curtains sweep across the whole width; choose one on each monitor and you get several skies side by side. The third option keeps it on the main monitor and blanks the others, which is handy if a second screen sits in your eyeline from bed.

Night company

Aurora shares a dark sky with Starfield warp and Fireworks in the classic pack, and with Deep space and Difference clouds in the night pack. Tick a few of them and use Install several to get a screensaver that picks one at random. All of them are mostly dark, which is restful, and on laptops the frame cap and battery saver in Install and options keep them light on power.