Northern lights amaze Lethbridge photographers [Video]

LETHBRIDGE, ALTA. –

Local photographers were amazed by the aurora borealis display in the night sky over Lethbridge on Thursday night.

“The last three nights have been the best aurora borealis that I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Austin Moloughney, a Lethbridge-based aurora chaser and photographer.

• IN PICTURES: Southern Alberta residents share northern lights snaps

“To have them this far south is really an anomaly of nature and so it certainly piques my interest to go out and see them when they are available to be seen.”

Whether in the city, river bottom or county, the vibrant lights were on display in full force.

“There’s something called a CME, or a coronal mass injection,” explained Locke Spencer, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Lethbridge.

“It’s when you have solar activity where particles are ejected from the sun, they travel through the solar system out towards the earth. These energetic particles come and hit our atmosphere and …