Multicolored Clouds

This unusual multicolored cloud was taken over Ethiopia.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110824.html

Another iridescent cloud in Canada-
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110208.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090512.html

[Silver]

How beautiful ~ I took a pic of one like the first one ~ well without the rainbow 'cap' yesterday, huge cumulus puffing up over the treetops. Have seen quite a few bits of rainbow clouds over the years. and there are those luminescent clouds after dark too. Can you scrounge up a pic of one of them? That's impossible to capture on the kind of camera I have, my cel phone camera...!

Originally Posted by Silvergirl

How beautiful ~ I took a pic of one like the first one ~ well without the rainbow 'cap' yesterday, huge cumulus puffing up over the treetops. Have seen quite a few bits of rainbow clouds over the years. and there are those luminescent clouds after dark too. Can you scrounge up a pic of one of them? That's impossible to capture on the kind of camera I have, my cel phone camera...!

Are the after dark luminescent clouds aurora? I just posted a page of those. All of these are from the NASA site. At the bottom of the page one has some options to locate specific types of pictures.

[Silver]

No, not aurora. There's a special name for them I read about, it's similar to the word "luminescent" or noctoluminescent ~ I forget the exact word for it, but they sort of 'glow' .

Originally Posted by Silvergirl

No, not aurora. There's a special name for them I read about, it's similar to the word "luminescent" or noctoluminescent ~ I forget the exact word for it, but they sort of 'glow' .

The Ethiopian cloud was labeled a ‘pileus iridescent cloud,’ & the Canadian one was also called iridescent.

Other iridescent clouds-
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/irid1.htm

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap071125.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050928.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040413.html

Google Images has dozens of these beautiful iridescent clouds-
http://www.google.com/search?q=iride...1537&bih=89 0

Is this the luminescent cloud you were referring to?

I had never heard of pileus clouds before your post, Mattie.
The iridescent simply refers to the fact that sunlight strikes them in such a way as to be diffracted by the ice crystals in the pileus cloud so that the rainbow effect is produced.

Pileus clouds can also form over the tops of volcanic eruptions. There is a neat picture of one taken from on high on http://[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pileus_(meteorology)"]

Originally Posted by Greybeard

I had never heard of pileus clouds before your post, Mattie.
The iridescent simply refers to the fact that sunlight strikes them in such a way as to be diffracted by the ice crystals in the pileus cloud so that the rainbow effect is produced.

Pileus clouds can also form over the tops of volcanic eruptions. There is a neat picture of one taken from on high on http://[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pileus_(meteorology)"]

That was a good pic on the wikipedia article. It seems the pileus is about the cumulus configuration, not the multiple colors.

From the above links.