Illinoisans delight in seeing the northern lights — a rare sight this far south

An image of the northern lights seen Sunday in Elgin. (Courtesy of Scottie Bloomer)

To really see the lights — the ones that look like a psychedelic dream in the heavens — tourists are often lured to the ends of the earth, to places like Greenland or Svalbard.

A trip to see the northern lights is something people put on their bucket lists. But on Sunday, if you were looking up at night in much of Illinois, you might well have spied a curtain in spectral green or purple draped across the sky.