THE skies shone with a green glow over East Lancashire as one of nature’s greatest sights showered the region with a light show to remember.

Two coinciding space weather patterns resulted in the Northern Lights shimmering on Wednesday night, and they will remain visible for a few weeks.

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People normally have to travel to Scandinavia, Iceland, Canada and Alaska to see the natural extravaganza – also known as the aurora borealis – on the darkest of nights.

And amateur astronomers in East Lancashire were delighted to witness the celestial spectacular from their back gardens.

The improved chances of a sighting were down to the combined effect of a ‘coronal hole’ at the Sun’s equator – which had aligned with Earth and was sending high-speed solar winds to buffet the planet – and the time of year.

Enthusiast Andy Sieroslawski helps run the Astronomy Centre, near Bacup, which was opened by founder Peter Drew in 1982.

He said: “It was fantastic. I think it’s the first one I have seen from the Astronomy Centre personally, and for Peter it’s only the fourth he has seen over the past 30 years.

“They do go as far as France on occasion and they are not that rare. You are either not looking or it’s cloudy.

“But with this one there were no clouds and no ambient lighting.”

Peter Drew said: “The northern horizon was seen to glow faintly with a greenish light.

“Aurora are commonplace at the Poles as this is where the Earth’s magnetic field lines converge. The further away from the Poles you are, the less chance you have of seeing one.

“I have, however, seen a couple of world class displays from this location in the past.”

The website aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk, compiled at Lancaster University, logs sightings of the light shows from across the county.

In April there were white and very pale green bands spotted over Lancashire, but the most impressive recent display was in February last year.

The Met Office confirmed that a burst of solar wind, usually caused by solar particles colliding in the atmosphere, may mean that aurora borealis will be seen on clear nights for the rest of the month.

UCLan Solar physicist Dr Timo Laitinen said: “The aurora are often related to huge eruptions at the Sun which hurl a large cloud of material into the interplanetary space. Sometimes such a cloud hits the Earth and disturbs its magnetic field, causing auroras even at low latitudes. These explosions follow an 11-year cycle, with a couple of eruptions a day at the maximum of the cycle.

"Only some of them hit the Earth, though, and only some are strong enough to give rise to an auroral display here in Lancashire. When the Sun is active, we have around ten to tens of Aurora nights every year in Lancashire.

"Yesterday's Aurora was however a bit different. At the moment the Sun is very quiet, and no big eruptions have happened in a while. Instead, this aurora was caused by changes in the solar wind.

"The solar wind is a breeze of hot charged gas, plasma, that blows continuously from the Sun normally about 400 km/s, or 900,000 miles per hour. Sometimes areas at the Sun called "coronal holes" blow much faster, up to 1,800,000 mph winds, which push and compress the slower wind and the magnetic field it carries out from the Sun. This kind of combination of fast wind and compression went past Earth yesterday, causing the Auroral display.

"There is still a chance for the Auroras to continue next night, but forecasting auroras is not simple, and they may have already weakened too much for a display in Lancashire.”