June 17th, 2009: Early, bright display, New Forest

The first noctilucent clouds of 2009 were spotted only a couple of weeks ago. During the last week however, few sightings have occurred over the UK. Then, some were spotted as far south as Sussex on the night of the 16th/17th. It was cloudy here that evening, so I didn't go out, but the next evening (17th), clear skies followed some earlier rain, and I headed out at about 2245 BST. A bright display was already visible to the north when I arrived around 2300:

A closer view:

It didn't extend to a great altitude from here because we are a long way south for seeing these, and it's still early in the season:

A band of low cloud began to spread in from the NW as I was taking pictures. I thought it might spoil the view, but it gave some interesting skyscapes:

The final two shots show the view as the cloud cleared again, revealing some more detailed structure. I headed home soon after 2350 BST due to some fog formation causing condensation issues with the camera etc: