Blue clouds?

Yesterday I saw three blue clouds. This after a night with extreme lightning and thunder. I will try to post a picture, it is on my cell phone. Has anyone else seen any blue clouds? The rest were normal.

reply to post by thorazineshuffle


Funny you should mention that - last night we had storms with mild thunder - but right before it hit - to the left of me (which would be East) the clouds were almost violet-purple ; however to my West which is where the storm was coming from, the clouds were very, very gray - dark and black almost. It was the oddest thing. I even remarked to my co-worker via Skype how strange it was.

clouds can reflect many different colors.
At night when its going to rain the clouds appear dark pink over the city where I live.
I have seen green clouds which where reflections of the great barrier reef. (not all the clouds, only a few)
your clouds may have been reflecting off some large blue surface.

reply to post by thorazineshuffle


I see them and dont know if they are clouds. Here is a thread I made about them. A rainy night I was watching a blue cloud and a white cloud. the funny thing is they seemed illuminated and the white cloud illumination stopped in mid air...

S&F I guess more can see these now..
www.abovetopsecret.com...

few days ago i saw grey cloud fill whole the sky. then i saw blue color light it up at first i thought it was light come from the moon. i dont know why i thought it was moon light so i look away from sky then got feeling that tell me its not moon light it was way too bright and more blue color. so i look at sky again it was GONE! there are no moon. and cloud were gone too. i cant explain what i saw. i thought maybe you saw same thing i saw. it was something in sky blue light.

I saw this about 8 am. I will post pics, if I can, after work.

Clouds can be any colour, depending on the type/what they are composed of and how sun light strikes them.

Here's a lenticular cloud I photographed last year that has many unusual colors (due to iridescence).
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/25e8d10bc340.jpg[/atsimg]

Blue clouds are usually (in my experience) noctilucent clouds. These can only be seen just after sunset however (or before sunrise), due to their extreme altitude.


Source: wikipedia.org

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Hi, I hope you see this as I know it's a long time since your post. Anyway, I have seen the blue clouds that appear to illuminated twice now in two different areas of the sky at night near my home.

I live in a suburb so it's not city lights and until these two events, I have not seen them before.

I've asked a few other people who also saw them and we cannot figure out what they are.

They are only at night, quite late. I looked into the Noctilucent cloud theory and they look strikingly similar but something doesn't fit and thats the time that these clouds are seen.

I have seen them well after sunset. Tonight I saw them about 15 minutes ago and it is 21:37hrs here right now. Our sunset was at 16:12hrs so it would appear to be far too long afterward for it to be Nocticular cloud.

I was wondering if you possibly have some other theories that I can look into regarding cloud phenomena?

I did take pics but for the life of me I can't find my usb lead for the camera (It's a 14 megapixel one though so hopefully I'll track the lead down as the pics are clear).

In the meantime, where do I start to investigate???

Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to offer I'm a newbie to this cloud malarky

If anyone else can help as well that would be lovely, Thanks

reply to post by thorazineshuffle


You bet. Many times in the last few years. This is another piece of the puzzle for the Raid Bug spraying Jets above.The fact that you even question it having noticed it, says all you need to know. There are some that are gonna tell you "Your color blind" or "You just haven't paid attention all your life until now" The truth is , your absoloutely right and I saw these same colored clouds 3 nights ago in Vegas. Whats causing it? Who knows. But it's not natural and it's only in recent years.

reply to post by ScorpioRising


I always check "my ATS" and log in fairly regularly, so I usually catch any replies left to old posts of mine.

I think you are right to cast doubt on what you saw being noctilucent clouds. Usually they are seen in Summer, up till the end of July, and when the sun is between 6 and 16 degrees below the horizon. They would also only be seen in the West, and relatively low on the horizon.

Sussex is also a borderline location for observing them since more northerly latitudes are favored.

I'm not sure you can entirely discount ground based lights, although street lighting is unlikely. Did the cloud appear to be stationary? How long did you observe it for?

Was it perhaps misty or foggy at the time? Under these conditions ground based lights can easily be scattered back towards an observer's eyes.

I think the next step would be to firstly check on google earth in the direction you saw the cloud/s, if there is anything that might be a potential source of blue-tinted light. A few things that spring to mind as potential sources are : Maintenance crews working on railways, or industrial sites/construction sites. New business opening up or holding special events/promotions will sometimes shine search-lights upwards. Sports and recreational grounds/facilities may be another possibility. I'm sure there are lots more potential sources of light out there.

One thing to bear in mind with colour is that it's relative... for example, our brains actually correct the colour of any scene we view without us consciously realizing this. The corrections are made based on what our brains expect to be seeing under natural lighting.

So if you are standing on a street underneath a sodium vapor street light, which only puts out light in a very narrow band of wavelengths in the orange part of the spectrum, everything should look one shade or another of orange, but you can still see that plants look green etc (just about) under the same light. That is because your brain is trying to correct for the "extreme orangeness" of the scene, much like "auto white-balance" function on your camera does.

The upshot of this, is that if you see a light that would appear to be blue-white under "normal" (ie daylight) circumstances, under these circumstances, it would appear to be much more blue in colour.

Keep in mind that although your eye may not seem to pick it up, there is artificial light pollution virtually everywhere in the UK now, unless you are lucky enough to live in a remote glen somewhere in the highlands.

Your eye may not always pick it up, but a good camera can with a relatively long exposure certainly will.

I would also say, try and document and observe the phenomena again if you can. I'm not sure what camera you have, but consumer-grade point n shoot cameras although great for daylight photography tend to struggle with subjects like clouds at night, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too much as to what you managed to catch on your camera.

A good camera and tripod if you don't already have one will help a lot. If you are determined to document it properly, a DSLR would be best, but you don't need to spend an arm and a leg on a new one, when there are plenty of cheap 2nd hand DSLRs out there that will do the job. I'd recommend a Canon EOS 20D if you don't want to pay too much. It can be bought in good working order, and plenty of life left in it for £150 to £200 on ebay. Perhaps even less. I haven't checked prices in a while.

For a bit more, the 30D (shares the same sensor as the 20D) would likely give you more longevity (50k more rated shutter life than the 20D, so 100k vs 50k shots before the shutter is expected to wear out), and Canon are more likely to be able to fix it if something does go wrong in the future. Not that it should - they are very rugged/reliable cameras, but they do wear out eventually.

Anyway, DSLR sensors are better at gathering light than "consumer" digital cameras, which usually have much smaller sensors. Even older DSLRs like the 20D (or equivalent from Nikon) trump the much smaller sensors of digi-cams. In fact some of the older DSLR sensors out-perform newer (and higher mega-pixel) sensors in terms of low light performance/noise.

Just as importantly, you have the option to have full manual control over your camera with DSLRs. Just make sure you set your "white balance" to "daylight". Setting it to "auto" means the camera chooses the right tint of the scene (ie giving you false colors).

One other advantage with buying a Canon EOS mount body is that you can find adapters for lots of other lens mounts, winch gives you access to a vast array of optics, many of which will work very well on DSLRs for considerably less cost compared to their modern Canon counterparts.

I can't think of anything else to suggest right now, but that should give you a few ideas where to start.

Good luck )

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Thank you so much for your reply! You have given me a few things to look into which I shall get to as soon as possible While I feel fairly confident that I could instantly rule a few things out, I never would without actually investigating and confirming. If I find anything particularly interesting I'll be sure to start a thread and send you the link.

The information on cameras is valued immensely as I desperately want a DSLR but they always seem way out of my price range, never even thought of ebay or second hand for some reason. My camera is very good for its type but it is just a standard digital camera so a DSLR would be my dream

Again, thank you!

reply to post by ScorpioRising


Glad I could help.

You are not alone in overlooking the second hand market for DSLRs. Most people don't need all the bells and whistles of the latest generation DSLRs, yet they still buy them. You sound like the ideal candidate to buy second hand, since the new prices are putting you off.

Of course, buying second hand is not without it's pit-falls, but if you follow a few simple rules, you should be able to pick up a bargain:

Firstly, start adding DSLRs to your ebay watch list, and see what they are going for. Don't buy anything till you have a feel for the market. Avoid sellers with less than 100% positive feedback, and new sellers. Don't touch anything that has a minimal description. Examine photos of the item cairfully. A bit of wear is usually ok, but I wouldn't touch anything that has lots of visible wear. Avoid auctions where the seller has not said how many shots the body has taken, or at least estimated it. Ask a question if nessasary.

Go for a body that has a relitively low shutter count - for me the limit would probably be 5-10K.

Above all, be patient and wait till the right body comes along at the right price before you bid, and don't go over the target price you set yourself.

Once you get the body, examine and test it thouroghly to make sure the seller's description was accurate (send it back if not). Ideally you should get a lens in advance. For this purpose I'd reccomend getting a new Canon lens. The Canon EF 50mm F1.8 mark II will cost you another £70 (new), but is a good lens to get you started.

Don't forget you will need a good tripod and a cable release - without these you will not get the most out of your DSLR especially if you want to use it for low light photography. I won't go into any detail here, but there are plenty of primers out there on what to look for when buying a tripod if you look.

For a good quality set of legs you will be looking at another £100 (new), and anywhere from £20-£50 for a reasnoble tripod head. Cheap Chinese copies of Canon's remote shutter release can be bought from ebay for around £2 or £3 including postage, and work just fine. I usually buy a second as a backup since they are so cheap, but I've never had any problems with them.

Thats £300-£350 for everything you'll need to get started at "proffessional entry-level".

If you want to go up a notch in terms of performance (and price), the Canon EOS 5D has one of the best sensors made in terms of sensitivity/low light performance. The prices seem to be dropping quite sharply too, after years of a gradual decrease in its second hand market value - a testiment to how much people love the camera/sensor. It might be a bit more than you want to pay now, but consider sending your old 20D back to ebay if you find it limiting and upgrading to a 5D with the proceeds later on when prices have dropped a bit more.

Feel free to U2U me if you want me to go in to more detail on any photograpy related topics... and good luck

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Thank you so much for all the info! It's nice to find someone who actually helps instead of sneering I will definately get in touch via u2u if I have any questions as you seem to know what you're talking about AND you're friendly!
Again, thank-you