Fantastic photographs of the Northern Lights were captured in a rare sighting above Suffolk.

The natural phenomenon – also known as Aurora Borealis - is typically seen nearer to the Arctic Circle in locations such as Norway and Iceland.

The Northern Lights were spotted over Haverhill, Sudbury and Ipswich overnight. 

Aurora is caused by atoms and molecules in our atmosphere colliding with particles from the sun, according to the Royal Museums Greenwich.

The wavy patterns of light are caused by the lines of force in the earth's magnetic field, and the different colours are made by different gases - the green is characteristic of oxygen, while the purple, blue or pink are caused by nitrogen.

Forecasters have also said that a display of celestial fireworks is expected to light up the night skies again tonight as the Perseid meteor shower is expected to be visible. 

As the earth passes through a cloud of cometary dust people could be able to see up to 100 meteors every hour. 

If the skies are clear the meteor shower should be visible across the UK from around sunset on Monday until the early hours of Tuesday. 

The event is associated with the dusty debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun once every 133 years.

The meteoroids from the comet, mostly no bigger than a grain of sand, burn up as they hit the Earth’s atmosphere at 36 miles per second, to produce a shooting stream of light in the sky.