Noctilucent Clouds 2012

[SNOW_JOKE]

Were now entering the start of the Noctilucent Cloud season especially anywhere above 53'N which includes places north of Manchester up to Scotland.

The NLC homepage hasn't recieved any reports so far, but with the incliment weather and fact the season has only just begun it's not really much of a surprise.

Hopefully with a few cloud breaks inbetween these Low's there may be a few glimpses as we approach Midsummer.

http://www.nlcnet.co.uk/

[Aaron]

Only seen this a few times - never take the time to look sadly. Will be looking for them though!

[SNOW_JOKE]

This coming week looks set to offer fantastic opportunities for those fortunate enough under clear skies. Eaterly winds coming in from the North Sea giving ample visibility and bearable night temps during observations. Going to be out and about tonight just incase anything is around.

[Aaron]

The clouds in the sky right now look like Noctilucent clouds.. if you know what I mean? Let's wait and see when it gets darker.

[shuggee]

Crikey - not thought about this this year yet. Thanks for the reminder - love NLCs

[lorenzo]

Good to see a thread for this, Noctilucent Clouds are great for the late light nights and also insomnia, something completely alien about them. Might be the wiki entry detailing how no one has quite figured out how or why they exist so high in the atmosphere.

Looking forward to another great display this summer.

Folk get at me for being a weather geek sometimes, but this seems like one of summers best kept secrets even among the peoples on here..

Facebook group here http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Noctilucent-Cloud-Observer-Network-2011/178014515556608

Featured great images and timelapse over last summer, looks like it will be same again, they just need to update group title to 2012.

[Backtrack]

Going to venture out now with the camera and see what I can see.

[Backtrack]

I saw ziltch..

[frogesque]

A few bands are visible tonight now. Great granddaugter expected any minute so not able to go out and take photos! Anyone else able to get out and post pics?

NNE roughly at the elevation of Spica

[knocker]

Good to see a thread for this, Noctilucent Clouds are great for the late light nights and also insomnia, something completely alien about them. Might be the wiki entry detailing how no one has quite figured out how or why they exist so high in the atmosphere.

Is this strictly correct?

Clouds, clouds, burning bright

NASA's AIM mission shows noctilucent cloud formation changing annually

High up in the sky near the poles some 50 miles above the ground, silvery blue clouds sometimes appear, shining brightly in the night. First noticed in 1885, these clouds are known as noctilucent, or "night shining," clouds. Their discovery spawned over a century of research into what conditions causes them to form and vary – questions that still tantalize scientists to this day. Since 2007, a NASA mission called Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) has shown that the cloud formation is changing year to year, a process they believe is intimately tied to the weather and climate of the whole globe.

"The formation of the clouds requires both water and incredibly low temperatures," says Charles Jackman, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is NASA's project scientist for AIM. "The temperatures turn out to be one of the prime driving factors for when the clouds appear."

So the appearance of the noctilucent clouds, also known as polar mesospheric clouds or PMCs since they occur in a layer of the atmosphere called the mesosphere, can provide information about the temperature and other characteristics of the atmosphere. This in turn, helps researchers understand more about Earth's low altitude weather systems, and they've discovered that events in one hemisphere can have a sizable effect in another.

Since these mysterious clouds were first spotted, researchers have learned much about them. They light up because they're so high that they reflect sunlight from over the horizon. They are formed of ice water crystals most likely created on meteoric dust. And they are exclusively a summertime phenomenon.

"The question people usually ask is why do clouds which require such cold temperatures form in the summer?" says James Russell, an atmospheric scientist at Hampton University in Hampton, Va., who is the Principal Investigator for AIM. "It's because of the dynamics of the atmosphere. You actually get the coldest temperatures of the year near the poles in summer at that height in the mesosphere."

http://www.eurekaler...c-ccb041811.php

[frogesque]

A few bands are visible tonight now. Great granddaugter expected any minute so not able to go out and take photos! Anyone else able to get out and post pics?

NNE roughly at the elevation of Spica

This should of course have read Capella, not Spica

[4wd]

http://earthsky.org/earth/nasa-satellite-observations-of-noctilucent-clouds-show-complex-atmospheric-interactions

[lorenzo]

Perfect conditions for viewing this evening...

must...

stay........

awake.........

[frogesque]

Conditions were indeed near perfect last night. Stayed up to watch Gold Rush on Discovery and keept peeking out during the ads.

Beautiful midnight twighlight but not a sausage! Nowt! Gave up and went to bed at 1.05am

[frogesque]

Super pic on Spaceweather of last night's display - taken from South Queensferry between the bridges

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Adrian-Maricic-Forth-Bridges-NLC-1200_1340617800.jpg

[lorenzo]

That is a cracking pic Frogesque going to put that on the regional thread.. great find.

[Backtrack]

Wow magnificent. What is the odds of seeing some tonight? It's completely clear with just a few scattered clouds?

[frogesque]

Wow magnificent. What is the odds of seeing some tonight? It's completely clear with just a few scattered clouds?

From here, not great - we are back to our normal with a cold grey north easterly off the North Sea and it's just started raining again.

Elsewhere, if skies are clear then it's worth a peek outside around midnight - 2.00 am. Sometimes they just turn up and disapear again, other times they can last over 2 or 3days or so. Part of their charm really, you never know when they will turn up!

[NL]

Formation of noctilucent clouds is thought to begin with the 'smoke' given off by meteors.

http://www.livescien...-clouds.html?FB

Makes sense as water droplets/ice particles are created by using dust as the nucleus.