Brad Goldpaint

The International Space Station creates a long-exposure streak in this photo of the auroral glow over Crater Lake, captured by Oregon photographer Brad Goldpaint. Click on the image to see the full-length video, or watch the embedded version below. For more of Goldpaint's work, check out the Goldpaint Photography website.

A surprisingly strong geomagnetic storm swept over our planet this weekend, resulting in a surprisingly strong set of videos showing the northern lights (and the southern lights, too).

A couple of the videos pack in some extra goodies. For example, Oregon photographer Brad Goldpaint's video of the aurora over Crater Lake features a long-exposure streak left behind by the International Space Station as it passed overhead on Saturday morning.

"Like the aurora, the ISS was another great surprise during the night," Goldpaint, who offers a treasure trove of night-sky views on his website, told NBC News in an email. "Usually I pay close attention to events like these, but this night completely threw me off with strong aurora levels and the ISS flyover."

Goldpaint told SpaceWeather.com that he drove out to Crater Lake National Park on Friday night primarily to photograph the Milky Way, not thinking that there'd be any fireworks. "I've waited months for the roads to open and spring storms to pass, so I could spend a solitude night with the stars," he explained. But by around 11 p.m., he was picking up on the signs of a great auroral show in the making.

"With adrenaline pumping, I raced to the edge of the caldera, set up a time-lapse sequence, and watched northern lights dance until sunrise," he wrote. "The moon rose around 2 a.m. and blanketed the surrounding landscape with a faint glow, adding depth and texture to the shot."

Scientists aren't exactly sure what caused the upswing in geomagnetic activity. "Current speculation focuses on a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) — that is, a shock-like transition zone between high- and low-speed solar wind streams," SpaceWeather.com's Tony Phillips reported.

There's a chance that observers in higher latitudes will see enhanced auroras on Sunday night as well, due to the interaction between a high-speed solar wind stream and Earth's magnetic field. To keep up with the aurora forecast, check in with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center and its automated Ovation prediction page. If you're in the zone, the best time to see the aurora is after midnight. In the meantime, check out these aurora time-lapse videos on Vimeo. For the best viewing experience, turn the settings to full-screen HD:

More auroral glories:

• Storming sun sets the skies aglow
• Northern lights dance with a comet
• Cosmic Log archive on auroras

For still more great time-lapse videos of the May 31-June 1 auroral outburst, check out "Aurora Over Mount Si" from Jim Reitz, and Michael Rector's "Bright Aurora in the Adirondacks."

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Brad Goldpaint

Photographer Brad Goldpaint captured this view of the northern lights over Crater Lake, Ore., early Sunday.

A double-burst of solar particles sparked auroral lights over the weekend, as expected — but at least in some parts of the world, the colors were not what you'd expect. Instead of the typical greenish glow, observers reported seeing reds, pinks, violets and even blues.

"It's been many years since I saw the blue in our auroras, but Saturday night they came back," John Welling reported in a note accompanying the photo he posted to SpaceWeather.com.

Pinks, reds and blues also dominated the scene captured on camera early Sunday by Brad Goldpaint, from a vantage point above Oregon's Crater Lake. In an email, Goldpaint told me the opportunity came about "by pure coincidence."

"Capturing this famous light show had been a dream of mine for several years, but I could not have imagined the lights showing up in my own backyard!" Goldpaint wrote. "After setting up near the Rim Village Visitor Center lookout area, I began to notice a faint band of moving light slowly making its way from behind the Watchman Tower, around 1:30 a.m. My camera began picking up bright pink bursts of light towards the north, with what also looked like unfamiliar vertical bands of light stretching upwards from the horizon. I quickly changed my camera’s white balance to confirm I was not picking up some random light pollution, or hallucinating in my drowsy state. Following additional exposures, I came up with the same amazing results. The magical shifting scene continued until sunrise, and like most days in the wilderness, I was awed and humbled by true nature personified."

The photo now graces Brad's portfolio at GoldpaintPhotography.com.

The colors of the aurora depend on the wavelength of the light emitted when fast-moving, electrically charged particles from the sun interact with different types of atoms and ions in Earth's upper atmosphere. If the particles hit mostly oxygen atoms, the light will be in the greenish-yellowish-reddish range. Collisions with nitrogen atoms produce the blue, purple and deep red hues.

The altitude of the auroral glow also affects the color: At altitudes between 60 and 120 miles (100 and 200 kilometers), the oxygen emissions tend toward the green side of the spectrum. At higher altitudes, you'll see more red. Blend all those colors, and you get a beautiful, wide-ranging palette.

The "Causes of Color" website provides a fuller spectrum of information. And speaking of a fuller spectrum, here are more of the weekend's colors, plus a bonus video:

Randy Halverson

Pink and purple rays highlight this picture of the aurora as seen from South Dakota's Black Hills by Randy Halverson. Technical details: Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 24-70, f/2.8 ISO 3200, 20-second exposure. For more of Halverson's images, click on over to Dakotalapse.com.

Stephen Voss

Stephen Voss snapped pictures of the southern lights from a spot near Invercargill in the south of New Zealand. "A dull arc hung around for a couple of hours before suddenly exploding with a mixture of rays and curtains," Voss told SpaceWeather.com. Check out Voss' gallery at Deep South Astrophotography.

Scott Lowther

Scott Lowther snapped this panoramic picture of Saturday night's auroral display as seen from Tremonton, Utah. The shot was taken with a Nikon D5000 and a 55mm lens at f/1.4 with 6-second exposures. For more of Lowther's photos, check out the Art by Earthlings website.

Shawn Malone / LakeSuperiorPhoto.com

Shawn Malone snapped this picture before dawn on Sunday morning from Marquette, Mich. "Got to witness the tail end of aurora activity as the skies cleared about 15-20 minutes before the sunrise light moved in," Malone told SpaceWeather.com. "Photos taken between 3:50 a.m. and 4:15 a.m. Bright aurora, with rays of light overhead, almost forming a corona. Beautiful purples came through on the exposures, but only light visible to the eye, as is typical with auroras right before sunrise." Check out LakeSuperiorPhoto.com for more of Malone's work.

More auroral glories:

• Northern lights blaze again on video
• Farewell to the northern lights
• Northern lights make for must-see TV
• Southern exposure for auroral lights
• Slideshow: The best of the northern lights
• Cosmic Log's auroral archive

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.