Around 10:30pm last night I started to see reports coming in on Twitter of a large and bright noctilucent cloud (NLC) display appearing across much of the country. Poking my head out the window I was, to my dismay, greeted with thick uniform cloud lit by light pollution. Hoping for the best, I checked on the latest IR satellite image from the Met Office which showed that a clear patch would likely arrive over my location around midnight. I’ll give it a try I thought.

Well, by 11:30pm the skies had cleared and the sky, low to the north, was glowing with bright and detailed swirling NLC activity. Running out of the house and down the dark lanes I found a spot where the hedgerow allowed me to glimpse the northern horizon. Here are a few of the fifty or so images I managed to grab. It was, without doubt, the most impressive NLC display I’ve seen from south Devon. Let’s hope for a few more displays like this one before the NLC season’s out.

All images above © Will Gater 2010