MANY of the News & Star Camera Club members were able to catch great views of the elusive northern lights - also known as the aurora borealis - in Cumbria this year.
The northern lights are a natural electrical phenomenon characterised by the appearance of streams of red or green lights in the sky, especially near the northern or southern magnetic pole.
The effect is caused by the interaction of charged particles from the sun with atoms in the upper atmosphere.
Typically, the northern lights are only visible in more northern locations, with countries like Canada, Iceland, Greenland and Norway regularly getting site of the aurora borealis.
But the lights are occasionally also seen in Cumbria with dark skies and little or no light pollution.
If they've been seen more in Cumbria this year, the answer as to why lies in our sun.
BBC weather forecaster, Simon King, said back in autumn this year that a 'peak' of solar activity is approaching in the next year or so as the sun reaches the zenith of its 11-year cycle.
"That means an increase in the number of sunspots - massive fields of magnetic pressure on the surface of the Sun," he said.
"These in turn erupt as a coronal mass ejection, or CME, which is when plasma is expelled from the Sun. And if that is pointed in the direction of Earth, it sends charged particles via solar winds toward our atmosphere.
"The charged particles interact with oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere to create the colours of the aurora we are all familiar with.
“Sightings are likely to become more regular as we approach the peak in solar activity in 2025.
“Seeing it in north-east England and Cumbria isn't too uncommon but for it to occur so vividly this early on in the autumn is less likely.”
From that, we can expect to be seeing a lot more where these came from next year, and perhaps the year after that.
It may be time to dust off the old camera and get snapping!
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