Chances are, unless you've been lucky enough to see them in person, you will have seen the northern lights in a time lapse video online. But have you ever seen them just as they would play out in real life?

Kai-Marius Pedersen is a northern lights hunter who records videos of real time aurora. No distracting music, no montages containing weeks worth of images in a few minutes. This is his first real time aurora video from a few months ago:

And his second is even more spectacular:

I have a lot of time for polished videos and grand effects, but sometimes it's nice to get as close to the real thing as possible.

Note: The featured image for this post is a view of the northern lights from the International Space Station. A real view that you've almost certainly never seen before...

(via @cosmos4u)