Noctilucent Clouds 2013

[toggerob]

Another spectacular display seen here also at 3am, fortunately it happened just before the clouds rolled in and as of last night (June 09th) the display was vivid with various cloud structure. I was about to call it a night at 3am so i've never been more fortunate to peek my head out the window when I did.

 

[Bobby]

Spectacular here too, better than last night. Got the camera out this time, this is before sunsrise.

 

 

Love those electric blues.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Bobby

[mushymanrob]

well.... disappointed again.

 

was going home at 11 pm, clear skies to my north... nowt.

 

how long after sunset is it before you see them? and how long does it last? (eg first observed 15 mins after sunset and lasts 30 mins), is it the same before sunrise? (im never up then...)

[Polar Maritime]

well.... disappointed again.

 

was going home at 11 pm, clear skies to my north... nowt.

 

how long after sunset is it before you see them? and how long does it last? (eg first observed 15 mins after sunset and lasts 30 mins), is it the same before sunrise? (im never up then...)

 

This should help Mushy.. http://www.iugg.org/IAGA/iaga_pages/pdf/ONC_Sep06.pdf

[Bobby]

well.... disappointed again.

 

was going home at 11 pm, clear skies to my north... nowt.

 

how long after sunset is it before you see them? and how long does it last? (eg first observed 15 mins after sunset and lasts 30 mins), is it the same before sunrise? (im never up then...)

 

The ones I've seen have been best in the twilight before sunrise, not sure why that is. They can a last a decent time, from the first hints of twilight until the sun becomes too strong and overwhelms them with the peak somewhere in between, so visible for an hour or so perhaps.

 

My photo was about 2:45am I think.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Bobby

[mushymanrob]

thanks guys

[Summer of 95]

I can't see some now can I? For the last 20 minutes or so I've been able to perceive some very thin high filament like structures in the direction of the sunset, up to about 25 deg altitude. There is a bit of cirrus there too which is clearly much lower and now turning orange as the sun sets, while the stuff above remains blue-white. I thought they were only visible once the sun was well below the horizon!

[Crepuscular Ray]

They're visible from about half an hour after sunset (e.g. not before some time after 10 p.m. last night in your case). Before that the sky's too bright, especially that low down. No idea what else it could have been, though

Edited June 30, 2013 by Crepuscular Ray

[Polar Maritime]

NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS INTENSIFY: The "noctilucent daisy" continues to expand and intensify as summer unfolds. Observers in central-to-northern Europe are reporting vivid, nightly displays of NLCs. Just hours ago, Alan Tough photographed these over Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland:

"This was another spectacular display of noctilucent clouds," says Tough. "I arrived in Lossiemouth in time to see the Moon rising and managed to capture its glitter pathon the River Lossie."

2013 is shaping up to be a good year for NLCs. The clouds 

by appearing early this year, and many bright displays have already been recorded. Once confined to the Arctic, NLCs have been sighted in recent years as far south as Utah, Colorado, and Nebraska. They might spread even farther south in 2013.

Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped 6^o to 16^o below the horizon.http://www.spaceweather.com/

[Evening thunder]

Finally seen some this year! got some going on to my N/NW right now. structure a bit like cirrus but it's definitely them.

[Bobby]

I just saw clouds that looked a bit like noctilucent but I think they are cirrus as before dusk there was a lot of cirrus in that same area and of a similar shape. Gone quickly now while if they were noctilucent I'd expect them to still be shining.

[Evening thunder]

Gone here now but I'm pretty sure they were noctilucent clouds, too bright/light to be cirrus at that time, the sun would have had to be nearly shining on them well after an hour after sunset. I could make out a bit of finer typicaly NLC texture too, hardly a spectacular display but took a few pics I may be able to upload tomorrow so others can see what they think

[Flipflop]

Just took some pictures in hope iv seen them at last.... electric blue whispa. 11:06 Hull. 

[Polar Maritime]

HOW HIGH ARE NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS? Noctilucent clouds are our planet's highest clouds--but exactly how high are they? The textbook answer is 82-82 km, but textbooks can be wrong. Peter Rosén of Stockholm, Sweden, decided to find out for himself. "On July 4th I photographed some interesting NLCs," he explains. "After uploading them on Spaceweather, I noticed that P-M Hedén had photographed the same formations and at the same time from a location 26 km (16 miles) north of mine. I decided to make precise measurements of the same features in both pictures with respect to the stars and try to determine the exact geographical position and height of these NLCs." Scroll past the images to learn more:

"Some years ago I found a very useful calculator put online by Paul Schlyter to measure the position and altitude of Perseid meteors. By entering the geographical position of both observers and the respective coordinates of an object in the sky, it will compute the position and altitude of the object. In this case, I used it for NLCs."

He picked four features color-coded in the figure above (best seen in the full-sized version) and measured their positions. "The height of these NLCs ranged from 75.1 km (blue dot) to 78.6 km (red dot)," he says. "These results seem to be a little bit lower than the value of 83 km that is often referenced." http://www.spaceweather.com

[Polar Maritime]

NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS: Earth's "noctilucent daisy" is glowing brighter than ever. Seeded by meteor smoke, noctilucent clouds are surrounding the north pole in a luminous circle visible from ground and space alike. Tadas JanuÅ¡onis photographed this display on July 18th from Vabalninkas in the Birzai district of Lithuania:http://www.spaceweather.com/

 

 

[reef]

Ive not seen any at all here this year as it always seems to cloud over at night!

 

Ironically in a somewhat worse summer last year I saw them quite a few times.

 

Time is running out now I guess as we're almost a month off the solstice.

[mushymanrob]

nope...they allude me, evening, even early morning, nowt

[Polar Maritime]

NIGHT-SHINING CLOUDS REAPPEAR OVER ANTARCTICA: The southern season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) is underway. NASA's AIM spacecraft detected the first wispy tendrils of NLCs over Antarctica on Nov. 21st and since then the electric-blue clouds have spread and brightened. http://www.spaceweather.com/

 

[4wd]

It seems fashionable in some quarters to blame them on methane,released from permafrost, how does that work on Antarctica?

[Polar Maritime]

Yes 4, that is one of the main factors which aid them, but not exclusively.

[Polar Maritime]

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/23dec_antarctica/

[Gray-Wolf]

It seems fashionable in some quarters to blame them on methane,released from permafrost, how does that work on Antarctica?

 

Do you not use 'Methane tracker' 4? Some of the largest emmisions over autumn were over Antarctica! Remember there is a frozen world of carbon at the bottom of all that ice!

[knocker]

Appearance of Night-Shining Clouds Has Increased

 

 

First spotted in 1885, silvery blue clouds sometimes hover in the night sky near the poles, appearing to give off their own glowing light. Known as noctilucent clouds, this phenomenon began to be sighted at lower and lower latitudes -- between the 40^th and 50^th parallel -- during the 20^th century, causing scientists to wonder if the region these clouds inhabit had indeed changed -- information that would tie in with understanding the weather and climate of all Earth.

 

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/appearance-of-night-shining-clouds-has-increased/#.U0hI3KJoqpB