2009 Noctilucent Cloud Season

Richard, I would go along with everything the guys have said, but would add that in my experience NLC's are very difficult to image. You have to have that "feel" for them and practice is the only way I'm afraid. With the comming of digital cameras it has become a bit easier because you can actually see what the result is in seconds. Unlike the film cameras where you had to wait maybe a fortnight to see the results. Digital IMO don't pick up some of the beautiful colors that was present in last night's display, so there's still room for film if you can wait on the results. I was frustrated by cloud last night but still got a few images and will post a couple later. I actually waited up late to try for the Mare Orientale on the moon and set up my equipment. I thought the NLC display was over but when I put on the webcam I found I couldn't get a focus nomatter what I tried. It was then that I discovered that faint NLC's were passing over the moon so end of imaging! This is a strange season for NLC's, as every display so far has been different with different structures. I don't know why that is, even the experts don't know for sure. BTW, Martin is correct about reading the newspaper by their light. I was on holiday in the north of Scotland in the 1970's? when we had a wonderful display, and we tried that experiment. The display on the 16th here I could read the camera settings with no problem, so they can be very bright particularly in high latitudes, so much so that it's very hard to get a correct exposure without overexposing, it's back to parctice again I'm afraid!

Martin, you got some very interesting images there showing lots of strange structures, well done on getting SW homepage. I have'nt sent any in to SW for a few days as he tended to ignore my images from the 16th, the ones with the "blue fog".