Until you get to recognise real Noctilucent Clouds (NLC) it is easy to get confused by high cirrus clouds that are illuminated either by the Sun even though it is below the horizon or by Moonlight. The purpose of this page is to show some images of false (or fools) NLC to support my main page on NLC observing. The title fools NLC comes from the concept of fools gold - Iron Pyrites which gold hunters and others have often mistaken for real Gold - sometimes hunting for NLC feels like hunting for Gold !
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The two images at the top show high Cirrus - the second taken not long after the first confirms this by showing the addition of an aircraft con train which is at a much lower altitude than the NLC. The image on the left was taken with the Sun more than 6 degrees below the horizon and shows a cirrus cloud lit by moonlight. Real NLCs are a brighter blue and look luminous against the dark sky. |
New Page 3rd June 2007
