The aurora borealis have left a Durham woman stunned - after showing up in her backyard. 

Kanoknet Suebsao spotted the Northern Lights from her back garden in Crossgate Moor, in Durham City - and quickly took some astonishing snaps of the natural phenomenon on Monday (September 25). 

The aurora borealis have been visible across parts of the North East this week, treating skygazers to a rare sight of the phenomenon.

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The Northern Echo: Aurora borealis, captured in Crossgate Moor, Durham.

Lucky Durham resident Kanoknet said: "After chasing the chance to see Aurora Borealis, we never thought we would have the chance to see the Northern lights from our own back garden in Crossgate Moor, Durham City. We had a lucky night tonight."

Professor Don Pollacco, department of physics at the University of Warwick, said it would be difficult to predict exactly where the Northern Lights would be visible.

He said: “To predict exactly where you can see the Northern Lights is difficult as conditions can change quickly.

“However, one thing is for sure, and that is that you are unlikely to see them from a brightly lit city environment – you need to go somewhere dark and look towards the northern horizon (look for the North Star).

“So, you would preferably be in the countryside away from street lights. Of course it also needs to clear.”

Explaining what the lights are, he added: “The Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) are caused by the interaction of particles coming from the sun, the solar wind, with the Earth’s atmosphere – channelled to the polar regions by the Earth’s magnetic field.

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“It’s actually a bit like iron filings and the field of a bar magnetic

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“The solar wind contains more particles when there are sun spots, as these are regions on the sun’s surface where the magnetic field is interacting with the plasma in the Sun, and the particles can be released.

“Once the particles are channelled into the Earth’s atmosphere they interact with molecules and have distinctive colours (eg oxygen molecules produce green light, nitrogen red light etc) and patterns such as light emissions that look like curtains or spotlights.

“These shapes over change quickly over timescales of minutes/seconds.”