After two years of trying to track it down, amateur astronomer Alex Cherney has captured the unadulterated color and beauty of Aurora Australis, also know as the Southern Lights.
On his Vimeo page, Cherney explains that the red color captured in this time lapse "is caused by the charged particles from the sun exciting oxygen atoms high in the Earth's atmosphere."
The incredible scene was captured from Australia's Mornington Peninsula, just outside of Melbourne.
The auroras that occur near the Antarctic circle are called Aurora Australis, as opposed to the Arctic Circle auroras, which are called aurora borealis or the Northern Lights.
A software developer by day, Cherney lives in Melbourne, Australia, and is a member of Mornington Peninsula Astronomical Society, according to his Facebook page.
