Montañez likely captured a photo of red aurora borealis, which appeared over Northern California on Sept. 12, Dylan Flynn, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office ...

At 12:40 o'clock on Monday morning nearly all of the sky was remarkably clear. Between 3 and 4 o'clock the heavens were suffused with the red and scarlet variety of the Aurora Borealis.

Oxygen gives off green, the most commonly seen color, as well as red light, according to Aurora Watch at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. Nitrogen glows blue and purple, according to NASA.