Northern Lights: Spectacular shots captured from North Yorkshire garden

An amateur photographer who took a nap on a night shoot awoke to find pictures of the Northern Lights on his camera.

Chris Lowther set up his kit on Monday at home in Bulmer, North Yorkshire "expecting to get some star trails" in the night sky.

Mr Lowther set his camera on a timer and turned in but when he returned a couple of hours later saw the machine had captured the spectacle.

The snapper said: "I wasn't expecting the Northern Lights."

The display, known as the Aurora Borealis, can be seen when atoms in the Earth's high-altitude atmosphere collide with energetic charged particles from the sun.

Mr Lowther's home of Ryedale, which with its low light pollution and views out over the Howardian Hills, is a popular part of the world for stargazers.

Many astronomers and photographers were outside expecting to see Jupiter, which was at its closest and brightest for the year on Monday.

The planet was in opposition - close to the Earth, and on the opposite side of Earth to the Sun - and made its closest approach to Earth since 1963.

The 53-year-old said: "I must have set the camera up at about 11 o'clock, it had been raining and I knew it was going to be a clear night.

"I knew about Jupiter, I got a couple of pictures of Jupiter but they weren't very good.

"So I went to sleep, but then when I woke up about 2 am and went outside and checked the camera, and the images were bright pink and green.

"I was about to pack in for the night but thought I'd just check before I switched the camera off and… wow!

"I stayed up until 4 am taking pictures."

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