Craft inspired by a wonderful sunrise

Waking early one morning in September, we decided to have a walk to the beach as the dawn was breaking. The tide was was well out, as the sun rose with the most beautiful sunrise which filled the sky and land alike,

Thinking about inspiration and theme for a handmade Christmas card for this year. I sat down with pastel chalks, guided by one of the images produced this:

I printed some copies, after adding Christmas greetings, layering a green card with red patterned card.

Anticyclone cloud swirl

Jane called me to look at the sky about 8 this morning as there was this unusual cloud swirl in the sky.

I wondered if this might be due to the weather conditions and checked the chart from the Met Office. The first picture shows the situation 8 hours before and the second 4 hours into the future.

Note the little white crosses show the centre of the anticyclone.

I guess we were observing the centre of the high pressure as it drifted North-East.

Noctilucent Clouds

We got off a train at Cradley Heath having been for a night out in Birmingham and this was how the sky looked from the railway bridge.

Noctilucent clouds after arriving at Cradley Heath railway station. 21st June 2019 about 23:00 hours

These clouds are rarely seen as they are mostly gathered around the poles of Earth, but this night they were seen as far south as Paris and Italy.
When we got home these were 2 pictures I took with my phone.

The noctilucent clouds slowly faded although they were still visible 3 hours later at 02:00 on 22nd June
This image was taken at 23:06 on the summer solstice 2019

The origin of noctilucent clouds is very much a matter of study. They are known to be over 80km (50 miles) above the surface of the Earth. They have been studied from the International Space Station. More information on Wikipedia.

Stunning photo below includes the Eiffel Tower:

View from Paris, courtesy of spaceweather.com and Kulik Bertrand