Looking south and leaving his shutter open for periods of 30 seconds at a time, he captured hundreds of images of the southern lights, lit up by a large solar flare which was occurring at the time.

More than 200 pictures were then "stacked" together to create this image.

The aurora is visible as a deep red glow above the horizon. Due to the time lapse, stars appear as semi-circular trails.

A small meteor is visible near the horizon towards the left of the image. The light trails of a plane can be seen tracing a near-vertical line to the right.

Mr Finlay said the solar flare was an extremely powerful phenomenon that could disrupt radio waves and satellites.

"It's a massive explosion on the surface of the sun, and it blasts solar matter out into space," he said.

"When the solar matter hits the earth, it's directed down the earth's magnetic field into the north and south poles, and that's what causes the aurora.

"They hit the upper atmosphere and the upper atmosphere glows."

Mr Finlay also used a film-making technique to join more than 200 images together to create an animation.