NASA astronauts onboard the International Space Station Thursday got a show for the ages after a geomagnetic storm sent the vivid aurora borealis canvassing over much of the planet -- including New York City.

"Spectacular not only from Earth but from orbit as well," American spaceman Don Pettit posted to X, saying that it caught both fellow astronaut Matthew Dominick and himself "off guard."

Pettit, who previously captured early images of a once-in-a-lifetime comet a few weeks ago, said the aurora was just "so-so" from their perspective initially.

"We were out of energy at the end of a long day and reluctant to once again set up our cameras up for yet another 'No Show,'" he added.

But right before bed, the duo made the "mistake" of taking one final peek out the window.

"Stunning was the word. It looked like [the ISS] had been shrunk to some miniature dimension and inserted into a neon sign," the astronaut wrote, adding a dose of poetry to what they captured next.

"We were not flying above the aurora; we were flying in the aurora. And it was blood red. Caught off guard, we hastily set up our cameras, four of them, all snapping shutters as fast as they could, creating a syncopated rhythm that accented Nature's artistic display presented before us."

The spectacular views on Thursday -- and then again on Friday night for some way up north -- was brought on by a solar flare on the sun.

The radioactive burst on Tuesday caused a "severe" coronal mass ejection, which sent electric waves hurdling toward Earth.