Northern lights will be visible over Cape Cod on Thursday evening. Have you seen?

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, the spectacular light show, usually only seen much closer to Earth's poles, was visible last night thanks to a geomagnetic storm.

The storm, in which a flare of solar material and magnetic fields reaches Earth, was expected to make the famous Northern Lights visible in the northern half of the country.

Cape Cod Times photographer Steve Heaslip took a photo of the lights over Barnstable Harbor, proving that the storm had extended the phenomenon to the Cape.

“Watches at this level are very rare,” NOAA said.

Officials yesterday had no precise prediction of when the lights would be visible. NOAA has a spacecraft a million miles from Earth that can detect when a solar storm is moving across the planet. If discovered by the spacecraft, the auroras are expected to be visible above Earth within 15 to 30 minutes.