If you are looking to capture Aurora Borealis for example when you visit this rock in the middle of the Atlantic ocean called Iceland (where I live)
- there are few things you need to capture the tails sharp.
A good tripod; A Pentax K5II, K5IIs, K3 or K3II (you can actually use K-01 as well or Spotmatic F with success), a good wide lens like 16-50mm f/2.8.
Location doesn't matter that much, since you can capture the northern lights in the middle of Reykjavik - they are bright over here and i've even captured them during summer in daylight (pure luck I guess).
Remember to set the focus to infinity - then put it in M (Manual mode).
So, when you have found a spot, use no more then ISO 1250 (everything above is overkill) and set your camera to capture "Interval Shooting" - you can set it to capture 10-20 frames at a time. Set the Interval to 10 seconds.
If you do this and have the lens at 16mm with some mountains, waterfall or lake (or the sea) - you should get results similar to my photo here.
Hope this helps