July 2nd, 2008: An Exceptional Early Morning Display

2008 has been a great year so far for noctilucent cloud sightings across Europe, with reports from the UK beginning in June. This amazing display was really unexpected, and I only noticed on the drive home from Kent after chasing some storms that way earlier. Around 2:30 a.m (bst), the clouds started to clear, revealing a bright sky to the north. At first I assumed it was the dawn dueto its brightness, but it soon became apparant that it was actually an unusually bright NLC display. When I reached the New Forest, I found a spot and set up my tripod to watch it all evolve. First shot is as it began to come into view to the north. Notice how bright it is compared to the starry sky above:

There was some great structure and colour to it with numerous waves and billows:

As the cloud moved away to the east, it was underlit by the city lights, giving the sky loads of colour:

The clouds got brighter still:

I used the telephoto lens to take a closer look at the fine detail. Apparantly, the frozen cloud particles are as small as cigarette smoke in these clouds, which gives them their silky appearance:

As the dawn got nearer, more and more of the high altitude clouds became visible, eventually covering the whole northern sky:

Finally a view to the east just before I left at around 3:30 a.m. This strand was visible for another hour at least: