Noctilucent clouds... over Denver!?

[Allan Jeffers]

Denver has been free of clouds for the past couple days... or has it? I was out after sunset tonight, around 5pm and noticed some odd clouds in the sky above the rockies.

I am not 100% sure that these are noctilucent clouds, I hear they can be seen here in Colorado but they are pretty rare. and I have never seen the before. I think in addition to my camera, maybe I should bring a tripod to work with me too.

 

[Ben Tillotson]

Yeah, I saw those last night here in Nebraska. The first thing that came to my mind was noctilucent clouds, but I'm not a pro at identifying those so I could be wrong.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

http://www.spaceweather.com/ - Western USA got their daylights scared out of them after an asteroid caused a bolide a few days ago, after that, strange clouds have been sighted. At this point, no explanation.

 

[Allan Jeffers]

Yeah, I sent the image to space weather (got listed but not featured ) and they can't explain it either. Images from Grand Junction and even Utah was posted that looked more like contrails then mine, but I was further east

 

[Tyler Burg]

I would think there would be more reports from experienced NLC observers if these really were NLCs. One other thing to note is that these clouds are 50 miles up in the atmosphere, usually they aren't visible until well have sunset (1 to 1.5hrs after). But that sure as hell looks like it could be Noctilucent clouds.

 

[Martin North]

I photograph NLCs over here. It really is very late in the year to have the correct angle of the sun to light them up. I think you need to look elsewhere for an answer.

That is a very orange sunset....is there any volcanic dust about over the states atm??

 

[Tony Laubach]

That is a very orange sunset....is there any volcanic dust about over the states atm??

If you ask that to Denverites, they'll tell you its that color cause God's a Bronco fan. Don't buy into that.. LOL

That's actually fairly typical sunset for us here... sunrises are pretty insane here, too!

 

[Allan Jeffers]

I did not see any tonight. There was a report of a Bolide over Colorado, Wyoming and Utah on the 18th, they think these odd clouds may have something to do with that

 

[MatthewCarman]

The link Tarmo posted shows a bolide affected parts of the west and turned night into day. When dawn came the clouds seen in the picture above were lingering around and nobody has so far identified them. People believe the clouds were associated in some way with the bolide. For those that do not know a bolide is a meteor and this was a big one that exploded after midnight. It had nothing to do with the meteor shower that was ongoing.

 

[Derek Weston]

Nonchalant clouds... just don't care.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Spaceweather now reporting that these clouds were identified as asteroid debris. Similar clouds were seen in Sudan after they had an impact event last October. Looks like the asteroid was something like that which hit Sudan.