Ozone Hole creating a Polar Stratospheric Cloud PSC - Nacreous Cloud
Nacreous clouds, sometimes called mother-of-pearl clouds, are rare but once seen are never forgotten. They are mostly visible within two hours after sunset or b...
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Nacreous clouds, sometimes called mother-of-pearl clouds, are rare but once seen are never forgotten. They are mostly visible within two hours after sunset or before dawn when they blaze unbelievably bright with vivid and slowly shifting iridescent colours. They are filmy sheets slowly curling and uncurling, stretching and contracting in the semi-dark sky. Compared with dark scudding low altitude clouds that might be present, nacreous clouds stand majestically in almost the same place - an indicator of their great height.
They need the very frigid regions of the lower stratosphere some 15 - 25 km (9 -16 mile) high and well above tropospheric clouds. They are so bright after sunset and before dawn because at those heights they are still sunlit.
They are seen mostly during winter at high latitudes like Scandinavia, Iceland, Alaska and Northern Canada. Sometimes, however, they occur as far south as England. They can be less rare downwind of mountain ranges. Elsewhere their appearance is often associated with severe tropospheric winds and storms.
http:--www.atoptics.co.uk-highsky-nacr1.htm
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They need the very frigid regions of the lower stratosphere some 15 - 25 km (9 -16 mile) high and well above tropospheric clouds. They are so bright after sunset and before dawn because at those heights they are still sunlit.
They are seen mostly during winter at high latitudes like Scandinavia, Iceland, Alaska and Northern Canada. Sometimes, however, they occur as far south as England. They can be less rare downwind of mountain ranges. Elsewhere their appearance is often associated with severe tropospheric winds and storms.
http:--www.atoptics.co.uk-highsky-nacr1.htm
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DublinEnemyNo1
July 08, 2016
Thank you all for 1111 Views & 1 Comment
Dublin Enemy No 1 LOVES that !!!
Dublin Enemy No 1 LOVES that !!!
b_k_ashworth
August 17, 2019
I have pictures of the same cloud from Bangor, Co Down. That shows how high it was! They normally form around 80,000ft or so. The cloud had a slightly different shape above us, but absolutely the same.
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Behind The Lens
Location
The photo of the Nacreous cloud was taken in front of my doorstep in Castleknock Dublin / Ireland.Time
It was early morning February 1st 2016, when I noted the rainbow clouds and I intended to shoot them after bringing my wife to work. Whilst driving normal clouds covered the sky and hid the rainbow clouds away behind layers of dark clouds. Sadly that's how the whole day & evening looked like. On February 2nd 2016 I had my camera ready to shoot and I stepped outside before I was having my coffee. I wanted to capture the polar stratospheric clouds while dawn was breaking - It was short after 6am in the morning - I skipped the coffee and kept on shooting theses wonderful clouds in the morning twilight.Lighting
I took many pictures with light changing due to the rising sun - this is the most pretty cloud I have ever seen and the twilight shot is the best one out of many I took. After reviewing my shots I wanted to take more but the clouds where covered by layers of lower clouds again. Polar Stratospheric clouds are in altitude of 15.000 to 25.000 meters I tricked my camera since the first shots where totally out of focus I set the main focus on the leaves of the tree and used the flash to pinpoint this focal point then I have continued with manual settings.Equipment
Camera: SONY ILCA-77M2 Lense: 18-55 SAM 2 Flash: build inInspiration
The previous day inspired me to shoot this cloud, I love the sky and everything around and behind the sky. A smart saying says; "The sky is the limit" - but Neil Armstrong or any other astronaut would not agree with this. There is no limit if you aim for infinity. My aim was memorising this morning.Editing
I took multiple shots(400-500) this morning many of these shot have been out of focus and very blurry and I selected this one shot to be the best shot I have ever taken. Since I learned photography the analog way I learned that the shot is the secret not the tools you can use to modify and fine-tune. My budget is so low that I can not even afford Photoshop or Lightroom which seems to basic for todays photographers. I used a free tool called "Fotor" to paste my name.In my camera bag
My bag usually contains the ILCA 77 M2 with it's standard SAM 2 DT 3.5-5.6/ 18- 55mm lens a Kenko 2x Teleplus adapter a Sigma 70-300 - 1:4-5.6 and an aspherical Tamron 28-200 My monkey tripod, batteries and a spare 32 GB SD card and a rain cover. If I go plane spotting I will dig out my Sigma DG 150-500 1: 5-6.3 lens and a sturdy tripod. For indoor & concert shoots I fell in love with a prime lens DT 1.8/50 SAM which I have only bought 3 month ago and a Flash - Sony HVL-F42AMFeedback
Ireland is the only country I know where you might have 4 seasons in one day. Mostly there are at least 2 seasons every day and many days with 3 seasons. To have an eye on the sky is very important everywhere and it is a reflex to me since I grew between two military airbases watching and spotting the military jets. The sky is one of the most beautiful objects and continuously changing second by second at day and at night. This type of cloud is very seldom to spot - it was the first time in my life (43 years) that I have seen a stratospheric cloud formation on Feb 1st 2016 and then the second time on Feb 2nd 2016. As pretty as nacreous clouds are as dangerous they are. A nacreous cloud is the proof of existence for ozone holes and the rainbow can only be seen if all circumstances are right. No lower cloud layers, very low temperature in the sky and some humidity captured in the ozone hole(s) which would create the rainbow reflection in the morning and in the evening.
