Photographers were able to capture the spectacle over many parts of the area including Knowlton Church, Poole, Holmsley and Dorchester.

Cenk Albayrak-Touyé of the Dorset Camera Club who took photos of the lights over Knowlton Church said: "Just as the sun was setting, RED ALERT... Aurora likely. I whizzed off to Knowlton Church and stood patiently for the darkness to come, and the Aurora to get stronger.

"WOW was I in for a treat."

The Met Office said the lights were “observed across Scotland, clearly visible from Shetland webcams, and sightings reported across some central and eastern parts of England”.

The Aurora Borealis over Holmsley, New Forest, by Jim Maclannan (Image: Jim Maclannan)

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Here's why Aurora Borealis sightings have been more frequent in the UK this year

On Sunday the Met said the best chances to see the northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, were in Scotland, but “it could be possible as far south as central Wales and England”.

The Northern Lights over Poole by R Goad Photoghraphy (Image: R Goad Photography)

Professor Don Pollacco, department of physics at the University of Warwick, said the phenomenon was caused by “the interaction of particles coming from the sun, the solar wind, with the Earth’s atmosphere – channelled to the polar regions by the Earth’s magnetic field.

The Northern Lights over Dorchester by Kevin Dibben (Image: Kevin Dibben)

“It’s actually a bit like iron filings and the field of a bar magnetic.

“The solar wind contains more particles when there are sun spots, as these are regions on the sun’s surface where the magnetic field is interacting with the plasma in the sun, and the particles can be released.

“Once the particles are channelled into the Earth’s atmosphere they interact with molecules and have distinctive colours (eg oxygen molecules produce green light, nitrogen red light etc) and patterns such as light emissions that look like curtains or spotlights.

“These shapes change quickly over timescales of minutes/seconds.”