Green Aurora Lights Up the Minnesota Night in Skywatcher Photo

Aurora from Duluth, Minnesota — Capturing this stunning aurora took only a night’s patience for astrophotographer Matthew Moses. Moses took this image from Brighton Beach along the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota on March 6, 2016. (Image credit: Matthew Moses/Moses Images)

Capturing this stunning aurora took only a night's patience for one Minnesota-based astrophotographer.

Photographer Matthew Moses took this image from Brighton Beach along the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota on March 6.

"I knew the aurora display had been active across Europe all day and just had to wait until it got dark enough in Northern Minnesota to get out and try to get photos," he wrote in an email to Space.com. [Poll: What's the Most Amazing Skywatching Sight?]

Auroras are caused by charged particles from the sun (the solar wind) that interact with the Earth's upper atmosphere (at altitudes above 50 miles, or 80 km), causing a glow. The particles are drawn to Earth's polar regions by the planet's magnetic field resulting in aurora borealis, or northern lights, and its southern counterpart the aurora australis, or southern lights.

For Moses, auroras are just something he's grown fond of capturing on camera.

"I just enjoy the views of the night sky," he wrote. "I'm a regular aurora chaser when we have potential for a display."

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Nina Sen is a freelance writer and producer who covered night sky photography and astronomy for Space.com. She began writing and producing content for Space.com in 2011 with a focus on story and image production, as well as amazing space photos captured by NASA telescopes and other missions. Her work also includes coverage of amazing images by astrophotographers that showcase the night sky's beauty.