First time seeing light pillars ever and it was a wonderful experience. They were quite luminous and very easy to see with the naked eye.
Here is a brief breakdown on how this phenomenon occurs.
In extremely cold temperatures when ice crystals form in the atmosphere. These ice crystals drift down through the atmosphere. And together they give off a mirror like effect as light shines on them. The more solid the crystal is the brighter you can see them.
Light sources that will produce these are likely going to be street lights, lights from buildings sometimes depending on conditions even moon light. Since these crystals are dropping down in a vertical position and shift to a primary horizontal by a few degrees to the person looking at the light source will see these as pillars.