Painting on the Sky

As seen on the Astronomy Picture of the Day the Noctilucent or night-shining clouds (NLCs) appear in a clear summer evening of Sweden. NLCs lie near the edge of space, reflecting sunlight from about 80 kilometers above Earth’s surface. They are usually spotted above the Polar Regions in summer, as seen in this summer-time image from Sweden. As noted by the photographer “In the late June 2009 I had one of the best NLC displays ever! They were all over the sky, from north to south and I tried to capture them in a panorama containing 34 photos.”