'One off my bucket list': Farmingdale photographer captures northern lights from his deck

The forecast early Saturday called for cloudy skies, but photographer John Entwistle looked on an app and saw an opening coming in the cloud cover.

So at 3 a.m. the Farmingdale resident got out of bed and set up for the light show of a lifetime.

"Insane," Entwistle said. "I wanted to see them for years but you have to go up north. To have it in my own backyard is just incredible."

The northern lights, or more emphatically aurora borealis, should also be seen early Sunday in New Jersey, according to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.

Solar storms that shower the Earth with energy, light and high-speed particles — plasma or coronal mass ejections — haven't been this strong in some 20 years. While that could mean disruptions of the power grid, the Global Positioning System and other communications equipment, they can also bring curtains, rays, spirals and showers of light. During this storm, the dazzling flickers were seen as far south as the Bahamas.

According to the space weather prediction center, this storm has reached G5 status, the most extreme storm from solar flares, an unusual event and the first time it has occurred since October 2003, according to the NOAA.

Entwistle had been waiting for this moment for years. For him, the historic space weather event was just something to marvel at.

More: The northern lights danced across the US last night. It could happen again Saturday.

"Every time there's one of these coronal mass ejections, the media picks up on it ... They've said it many times before, that you might be able to see them in New Jersey and I never have, so you take it with a grain of salt," Entwistle said. "Now, it's definitely one off my bucket list."

Entwistle said the joy of photography comes from capturing something like this and then passing his pictures around.

He has gone viral before, amassing some 250,000 likes with a photograph of a supernumerary rainbow taken from his deck on Sept. 18, 2018.

"It looks fake, but it's real and very rare," he said.

On April 8, he made an 11-hour trip up to Maine to capture the total solar eclipse, the brilliance of which was related to the intense solar activity this season.

"So I thought I was having a good year getting that eclipse. And now I get this to add," he said. "It's been an extraordinary year."

Ken Serrano covers breaking news, crime and investigations. Reach him at 732-643-4029 or at kserrano@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Northern lights beam in this shot taken by Farmingdale photographer