Fantastic!
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A rare cloud formation has been spotted in the night sky above the North Yorkshire town of Scarborough.
Noctilucent clouds are caused by sunlight shining on ice crystals 50 miles (80km) above the earth’s surface, according to BBC Look North’s weatherman Paul Hudson.
He said they are the highest clouds to be seen in the atmosphere and tend to occur in summer.
The word noctilucent means night shining in Latin.
With clear skies forecast in parts of Yorkshire on Monday night, there may be a chance to see them again, by looking to the north.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-28199619
Lets hope it’s not actually an unsociable display by a gas or oil rig, quietly passing it’s time out in the North Sea…! Or even a reflection of Le Tour as it meandered, lost in the Yorkshire lanes like everyone else at some time or other.
But I do wonder about what time this was taken – quibbling over whether it is actually night or, pedantically, early morning. Scarborough faces East, the Sun rises in the East, and what time is sunrise 50 miles up since it is hardly likely for this image to be taken after sunset without the sky glowing more.
Um, maybe.
By: Richard gray - 9th July 2014 at 20:06
Actually I believe that the BBC headline do not fit in with the photo, the clouds may have been seen over Scarborough. but not by the person who took the photo.
I think the photo was taken somewhere on Royal Albert drive, north of the town. Looking Northwards towards the Sealife centre.
The horizon and rails seem to match, but seem to be more lights, but then the Google pics were from 2011.
By: Richard gray - 9th July 2014 at 18:53
But we can have a good guess at the time the pic was taken. Sometime after 22.35 pm as these clouds will only appear one hour after sunset. (7th July sunset at Scarborough was 21.35pm) and the sun has to be 6 -16 degrees below the horizon.
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/highsky/nlc1.htm
These clouds cannot occur at sunrise as the atmospherics would have charged in the period of darkness and the ice crystal’s would have gone.
Another indication that this picture is taken at night is the brightness of the lights on the shoreline.
They would not be on at 4.38 am the time of sunrise.
By: snafu - 9th July 2014 at 13:19
My theory is that, it is night time. and the setting sun rays are hitting the ice.
Somehow like this.– ice
/O = earth Scarborough
o = sun
Ah, but we don’t know what time this picture was taken and a difference of 50 miles (near enough) vertical surely wouldn’t make that much difference to the sunrise/set times (minutes, probably) at the ice crystal’s height? Light does get, for want of a more effective word, ‘trapped’ in the earth’s atmosphere so that the sky stays illuminated for quite a while after the Sun has gone below the horizon, but if this image was taken several hours after sunset – or several hours before sunrise – then I am eager to learn what is happening.
To illustrate by borrowing your diagram…
———-* ice
———O` Scarborough (with the earth directly between the Sun and the ice crystals)
——O Sun (millions of miles away!)
By: Bob - 9th July 2014 at 00:53
Pretty amazing time lapse of noctilucent clouds in the far north of Scotland….
By: Richard gray - 8th July 2014 at 23:43
My theory is that, it is night time. and the setting sun rays are hitting the ice.
Somehow like this.
– ice
/O = earth Scarborough
o = sun
By: AlanR - 8th July 2014 at 16:53
Nice picture. I haven’t seen any noctilucent clouds for a couple of years. We had a period of several days when they were visible from about 11pm. On one occasion going from the horizon to directly overhead.
By: 1batfastard - 8th July 2014 at 15:57
Hi All,
I noticed it was unusually bright for 2.a.m. as we had already had the longest day, in Warwickshire normally starts to brighten this time of the year around 3.a.m.
Geoff.
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July 8, 2014 at 11:16 am