Here’s how to best use your phone to capture the Northern Lights

The Northern Lights made their way down to the Chicago area Tuesday, but if residents are treated to another show Wednesday, there's an important tool you can use to see them at their best.

A display of the Northern lights this far south is unusual, and Tuesday night we got a full show.

“The Northern Lights being seen in our area is generally pretty rare,” said Michelle Nichols of the Adler Planetarium. “We only get to see it two or three times a year.”

Nichols says the sun is the main reason we are seeing the lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, with a phenomenon called a coronal mass ejection, or CME, helping spark the show.

“A coronal mass ejection is a release of a bubble of material from the sun, protons...electrons, and that stuff goes outward into the solar system,” Nichol