PHOTOS: Aurora Borealis visible from western Loudoun

BLUEMONT, Va. — A man in Virginia was able to capture pictures of the Aurora Borealis in western Loudoun County Sunday night.

Daniel Gillies, an engineer and wildlife scientist, was in bed when he saw a space weather alert on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Though northern light tracking mobile applications predicted only a 1% chance of being able to see the lights in Bluemont, Virginia, he went outside and was able to capture these photos at around 1:30 a.m.

Gillies wrote in a post on Reddit that he could see a faint red glow and occasionally the tall streamers of light by the naked eye, and used one to two second exposures on his iPhone 15 to capture the full beauty. 

The Perseid meteor shower was also visible Sunday night, and Gillies said he saw a few meteors as well.