Northern Lights: 18 photos of the October 10 aurora borealis in the Bishop’s Stortford area

Just like buses, you wait a lifetime for the Northern Lights to dazzle in Bishop’s Stortford, then they turn up twice in five months – to the day!

The lights, also known as aurora borealis, were expected to be seen only as far south as the Midlands, but Thursday night (October 10) brought the strongest and most widespread showing of the phenomenon in the UK since Friday May 10.

The light show is not always visible with the naked eye, so meteorologists advise a long-exposure camera is used to capture it. However, many people further south – including the Herts and Essex border country – were able to see some of the colours unaided.

The celestial spectacle shimmered across the night sky, painting it with vibrant hues of red, green, blue, purple and pink. The magical event was captured on cameras and phones from late Thursday evening into the small hours of Friday, yielding awe-inspiring images.

On the Stortford Nature Facebook page, Nigel South summed it up for many when he said: “I’ve wanted to see the Northern Lights for so many years. I’ve missed them every time we’ve had them this far down south, but finally I get to tick this off the bucket list.

“I’m overwhelmed with joy at finally having the opportunity to see this phenomenon with my own eyes.”

Others identified with Chris Wells’ comment on the Indie’s Facebook page: “I missed it… was in bed. Always arrive well past my bedtime.”

Aurora displays occur when charged particles from the sun collide with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere around the magnetic poles. As they collide, light is emitted at various wavelengths, creating colourful displays.

They are most commonly seen over high polar latitudes and are chiefly influenced by geomagnetic storms which originate from activity on the Sun.

The lights have been visible right across the UK after an extremely geomagnetic storm, G5, the highest on the 1-5 scale.

What used to be a once-in-a-lifetime event for people to see it in the UK – or a bucket list trip to the Arctic Circle – has become more common in the last couple of years.

The UK has seen more of the Northern Lights in 2024 than in many recent years. This has been helped by the sun reaching a “maximum” in its 11-year solar cycle.

During this, the number of sunspots increases, which leads to more coronal mass ejections sending charged particles to Earth, creating the aurora.

A solar storm caused a powerful flare from the sun on Wednesday, which arrived in our atmosphere on Thursday evening.