Aurora hunter treated by coastal lights display

Perfect conditions allowed for a display of the Northern Lights visible to cameras on the Norfolk coast

Weather conditions and solar winds aligned over the weekend to create perfect conditions to see the Northern Lights from Norfolk.

Columns of the aurora could be seen, when using a camera, dancing over the North Sea off the coast at Happisburgh.

"We had a glancing blow off a solar flare, basically – the sun sneezed and we were the handkerchief to catch it," said aurora hunter James Rowley-Hill.

The Northern Lights are caused by the interaction of the solar wind - a stream of charged particles escaping the Sun - and our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere.

Aurora hunter James Rowley-Hill could see the display from his home

Most are deflected away, but where the Earth's magnetic field is weakest - at the poles - these charged particles can enter the atmosphere and create the dazzling display so many hope to see.

"It started on Friday night. The aurora kicked off two or three times and we had clear skies for much of the weekend so it all fell into place," said Mr Rowley-Hill, who is based in Norfolk and also administers the 22,000-strong Aurora UK group on Facebook.

"What we tend to see from Norfolk, and we’re lucky to do so, is the highest part of the aurora as it sits much further north across the planet."

Mr Rowley-Hill added: "The red tones are in the highest altitudes of the aurora; the lower parts are usually green which is what you tend to see if you’re in Iceland or northern Finland."

The colours in the aurora over the weekend could only be seen "on camera" using a long exposure, but by eye "you could see the sky was clearly brighter to the north", he said.

Observing auroras gives scientists insight on how our planet's magnetosphere reacts to the space weather near Earth, said NASA

"The columns of light are basically the atoms in just one area of the sky exciting in a vertical plane," said Mr Rowley-Hill