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Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
July 8, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
July 8, 2014

-The Moon's latest daily shift eastward brings it left of Saturn and upper right of Antares at nightfall. Closer below the Moon are Beta and Delta Scorpii (as seen from North America).

-For the second day in a row, the odds of a powerful flare have increased. NOAA forecasters now estimate a 70% chance of M-flares and a 15% chance of X-flares on July 8th. The likely sources are sunspots AR2108 and AR2109; both have unstable "beta-gamma-delta" magnetic fields that harbor energy for eruptions.

-This morning in Russia, the sunrise was electric-blue. Bright bands of noctilucent clouds zig-zagged like lightning across the twilight sky, continuing a two-day display that has delighted observers across northern Europe. Michael Zavyalov sends this picture taken July 8th from the city of Yaroslavl.

"Another night with bright noctilucent clouds (NLCs) in Yaroslavl!" says Zavyalov. "We could even see their reflection in the water."

NLCs are Earth's highest clouds. Seeded by "meteor smoke," they form at the edge of space 83 km above Earth's surface. When sunlight hits the tiny ice crystals that make up these clouds, they glow electric blue.
In the northern hemisphere, July is the best month to see them. NLCs appear during summer because that is when water molecules are wafted up from the lower atmosphere to mix with the meteor smoke. That is also, ironically, when the upper atmosphere is coldest, allowing the ice crystals of NLCs to form.

The natural habitat of noctilucent clouds is the Arctic Circle. In recent years, however, they have spread to lower latitudes with sightings as far south as Utah and Colorado. This will likely happen in 2014 as well. Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the Sun has dipped 6o to 16o below the horizon. If you see blue-white tendrils zig-zagging across the sky, you may have spotted a noctilucent cloud.

Astro Picture of the Day:
July 8, 2014

Source:
Why would a cloud appear to be different colors? A relatively rare phenomenon known as iridescent clouds can show unusual colors vividly or a whole spectrum of colors simultaneously. These clouds are formed of small water droplets of nearly uniform size. When the Sun is in the right position and mostly hidden by thick clouds, these thinner clouds significantly diffract sunlight in a nearly coherent manner, with different colors being deflected by different amounts. Therefore, different colors will come to the observer from slightly different directions. Many clouds start with uniform regions that could show iridescence but quickly become too thick, too mixed, or too far from the Sun to exhibit striking colors. The above iridescent cloud was photographed in 2009 from the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal, behind the 6,600-meter peak named Thamserku.