360-Degree Starlapse Video Captures Glowing Northern Lights Lit up in Southern California Skies

As part of its 11-year solar cycle, the Sun initiated its cycle number 25 in October 2024. Ever since then, it has been blasting Earth’s magnetic field with aggressive bursts of solar flares. In November 2025, several states across the US became the Sun’s target. Recently, a series of simultaneous coronal mass ejections flooded and hurtled towards the Earth, followed by intense geomagnetic storms. The bad news is that the storms can disrupt the Earth’s electrical systems, cause the computers to glitch, and shut down the power grids.

But in Southern California, the storms have illuminated the skies with rainbows so intoxicating that people can not step out of their homes and behold the nightly romance unfold. At a 90-minute drive from Los Angeles, photographer Patrick Coyne (@patrickc_la) filmed a 360-degree video of Northern Lights in Southern California’s Mountain High Resort.

The “starlapse” video, as Coyne describes it, was filmed on Insta360 X5. Although beyond an exact description, the video shows a vast field with groves of towering trees on all sides. As the camera rotates in a circular motion, it captures the trees silhouetted against the sky and staring at it from the top.

Up above, the vast sky displays a performance of glassy colors, powder blues, candy pinks, electric greens, and purple blueberry. The lapse of time created in the video adds a dynamic element to this performance, displaying an ocean of milky white clouds churn and sift while the colors explode and dissolve. “The color/clarity really surprised me, and being able to capture a 360 degree timelapse to reframe after is spectacular,” the photographer wrote in the caption.

In a previous video, shot on the same location, Coyne expressed how excited and blessed he feels for being able to witness these auroras and record them, too. “I truly feel so lucky being able to witness such beauty and share it with the world,” he wrote. This video, not 360-degree, starts on an avenue of trees, viewed from a different point of view than the above video. In this footage, the trees appear black, their silhouettes painted against the sunset sky. The camera pans around to record a sky wrapped in a blanket the color of cranberry wine with glowing curtains, dark pink, bright orange, and purple.

In the comments section, viewers told Coyne that the views in Southern California could become even more interesting in the coming days. NOAA predicted the same. According to NOAA’s aurora prediction map, residents across the southern-most locations in North America will likely witness more auroras tonight, November 27, and tomorrow night.