The sunset colours painted the sky orange and red for ten minutes as Jim Miller (Member 45,129) looked out over the rooftops of Great Ayton towards Easby Moor beyond in North Yorkshire, England.

Altocumulus is the mid-level, solid-looking cloud, and we call it stratiformis when it is spread out as an extensive layer – one that offers a broad canvas for the setting Sun. When a cloud is lit at a glancing angle like this, you can also sometimes see it has developed in separate layers that are at slightly different levels. The higher layer here is in the shadow of the lower one. A stacked configuration like this makes it also the cloud variety duplicatus. With Jim’s Altocumulus stratiformis duplicatus cloud, the sunset has a spare canvas ready for a second draft.