Noctilucent clouds seen from Tow Law
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Noctilucent clouds seen from Tow Law by Ian Porter as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Image: © Ian Porter Taken: 18 Jun 2009
These clouds are very much in the astronomy news at the moment. Normally they are an elusive phenomenon. Very little is known about them other than they are the highest of clouds, 47-53 miles high in the mesosphere (53 miles = 85 km = 280,000 feet). This photo was taken at 01:12 on 18th June. The star to the right of the picture is Capella in the constellation of Auriga. There is more info on wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctilucent_cloud and at spaceweather.com www.spaceweather.com This is the first time that I have known what this phenomenon is, if I hadn't read about them I would have assumed they were the Aurora Borealis, they were really so bright. Although the brightest streak looks a bit like lightning, it wasn't moving at all. Try and see them soon if you can, it's fascinating!