An Auckland photographer has been lucky enough to capture an extremely rare sight while photographing the evening sky overnight.
Larryn Rae captured what is known as a 'red sprite' in the sky while shooting on the North Shore.
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Red sprites are bursts of crimson light occasionally visible at night. They are electrical and only happen above highly active thunderstorms.
The phenomenon generally lasts for just a few milliseconds, and is rarely able to be observed from Earth, according to National Geographic.
Mr Rae thought at first it was a lens flare on the screen of his camera, but eventually discovered he had captured something rather spectacular and uncommon.
The North Shore-based freelance photographer was running a photography workshop, and had left his camera set up for an hour when the photo was accidentally captured.
"It was a happy accident, I had set the timer off during a lightning storm whilst hosting a photography workshop," he said.
Mr Rae said he didn't know much about the rare occurrence of the red sprite, but asked around and knew straight away that was what he had captured.
Newshub.
