Northern lights amaze photographers around Ottawa

The skies once again captured the capital region's attention Thursday night when a geomagnetic storm sent shimmering aurora borealis its way.

A geomagnetic storm is a disturbance of the Earth's magnetic field, typically triggered by solar activity on the sun.

These storms can cause a coronal mass ejection, which sends particles from the sun on a fast wind toward Earth. If these particles interact with our magnetic field, we get the northern lights.

That equation hit the Ottawa area this week, bringing the show further south.

One catch was the lights barely, if all, showed up for many eyeballing the horizon wondering where all the lights from their friends' photos were.

What's key is that they were photos: cameras collect more light than the human eye, bringing life to very dim things.

Thursday night's lights follow the rare asperitas clouds that rolled through on Sunday.

Here's a sample of what it looked like.