Mr. Eustace landing. He wore a specially designed spacesuit with a life-support system. Credit Paragon Space Development Corporation

Alan Eustace, 57, a senior vice president of Google and Cloud Appreciation Society member number 32,261 recently broke the world record for sky-diving from the stratosphere. The New York Times reported on this amazing feat quoting Mr Eustace “It was a wild, wild ride,” he said. “I hugged on to the equipment module and tucked my legs and I held my heading”.

The total fall was over 25 miles in 15 minutes – the complete story and video can be seen on the The New York Times website.

Thank you to Peter Dickman for drawing this to our attention.

BBC News Australia recently posted an article and images of photographer, Murray Fredericks’ trip to Greenland’s Ice Sheet. There are some fantastic images including a 22′ & 46′ halo, tangent arc, parry arc, cza and parhelic circle along with a wonderful account of his adventure. It’s well worth reading and can be found on their website here.

Many thanks to John Brigden for drawing this to our attention.

We were recently contacted by Society member, Jan McIntyre, who expressed her delight at stumbling across this beautifully labelled wine.

The producers, Evans & Tate, have a selection of Cloud Dancer wines and we can’t wait to try them!

We recently came across this on the Something Amazing Blogspot.

The unusual wooden cabin designed by Bruit du Frigo looks like a white cloud and serves as an art installation and shelter for up to seven people. Travelers can reserve the cabin and stay overnight for free. It was constructed by Zebra3 and is located in Lormont, France.

You can see more amazing images here

“Every Cloud” has been created by Joseph Perry and is part of his ongoing Typology series, which sees historical scientific data re-imagined into contemporary geometric charts. It celebrates the work of Luke Howard, the amateur meteorologist who brought order to the ever-changing skies. In his book ‘The Modifications of Clouds’ (1803) Howard harnessed the unpredictable beauty of the clouds, classifying them using a Latin naming structure.

Each limited edition print comes hand numbered and signed with copies now available for purchase at £32.00 each from Joseph’s webstore

Society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, will be speaking at this symposium in the Scottish Highlands, which is themed this year on ‘Perceptions of Exploration’. Although there are no tickets left for the day of hosted walks (Friday 14 Nov), they are still available for the symposium day (Saturday 15 Nov). Other speakers include mountaineer Doug Scott and artist Richard Long.
More information here

Sometimes when you want to see something unusual in the sky, you need to look in the opposite direction to everyone else.
Go to Cloud of The Month for October…

We were recently contacted by NASA who wanted us to share their press release inviting members of the public to join #SkyScience Cloud Study…

“NASA is inviting people around the globe to step outside during Earth Science Week, Oct. 12-18, observe the sky and share their observations as citizen scientists.

NASA’s #SkyScience activity is part of an annual educational event organized by the American Geosciences Institute to encourage the public to engage in Earth sciences. Citizen scientists can participate in this global Earth science data collection event by observing, photographing and reporting on clouds over their location as a NASA satellite passes over. Reports and photos will be compared to data collected by NASA Earth-observing instruments as a way to assess the satellite measurements.

Using the hashtag #SkyScience, participants are encouraged to post their cloud and sky photos and observation experiences to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr. Throughout the week, NASA will share some of the most interesting photos on the agency’s social media accounts.

In addition to #SkyScience, NASA has been engaging students in cloud observation for years through the agency’s Students’ Cloud Observations On-Line (S’COOL) project.

“#SkyScience is another opportunity to get lots of reports in a short period of time and enable additional statistical analysis,” said S’COOL project lead Lin Chambers of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia”.

To learn how to get involved in the #SkyScience activity, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/skysci

For information about NASA’s Earth science activities in 2014, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow

Society Founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney was recently interviewed by online magazine, The Verge, about his quest for recognition of the cloud undulatus asperatus.

“Ten years ago, Gavin Pretor-Pinney decided to rebrand clouds, or what he likes to refer to as the “patron goddesses of idle fellows.” For too long, clouds had been co-opted by bleak expressions like “head in the clouds” and “under a cloud”; dismissed as stains on otherwise beautiful blue skies; and maligned as harbingers of crummy weather and bummer vibes. Pretor-Pinney wanted to change all that….” Read More…

There is an exhibition of 23 artists working with clouds taking place in Passau on the German/Austrian border. It is entitled “Wolkenschauen” which means cloudspotting. It is running until 12th October 2014 at the Kunstverein Gallary, Passau and and cointinues in two venues from 18th October until 9th November in the capital city of lower Bavaria, Landshut (30 minutes northeast of Munich). Artists of the exhibiting include Simon Read from London, UK; Laura Vandenburgh from Eugene Oregon, USA; and Karl Reinhartz, Kurt Benning, Michael Klant and Katharina Gaenssler from Germany.

For more information please see HERE

Below are some images sent in by Michael Jank, curator of the exhibition, Katharina Gaenssler, Buttons, 1999, (Cut out from holiday pictures of her journeys, with the city stamped in on the back) and Michael Klant, poetic banner flying over Passau ” I change but I cannot die” (Percy Shelly)

An article was posted on the BBC News Scotland website about Charles Thomson Rees Wilson the only Scottish-born physicist ever to have won the Nobel Prize for Physics and who was inspired by the cloud formations he had witnessed on Ben Nevis.

The story goes into depth about his work tracking particles and his attempts to recreate clouds in his laboratory. Over a 20 year period he developed a cloud chamber which “made things visible whose properties had only previously been deduced indirectly” (Dr Alexander Mackinnon, honorary research fellow (Physics and Astronomy) at the University of Glasgow).

The article ends with a quote from Alan Walker, an honorary fellow of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Edinburgh University who said “Who would have thought that sitting on the top of Ben Nevis being in wonder at the clouds would have ended up actually laying the foundation of discovering things at the very small level.

“That must have been quite something to have gone from just being interested in clouds to ending up inventing something which was the birth of particle physics.”

To read the full article please go to the BBC News Scotland website.

Thanks to Society member, H Brown for bring this to our attention.

Cloud Appreciation Society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney was recently interviewed for “The Thinker’s Garden” website. It’s a fairly new website featuring articles on the obscure and sublime in alternative culture, history and art. Gavin was happy to contribute his thoughts and you can see the full interview here.

Geophysicist, Alexander Gerst is currently aboard the International Space Station and from this vantage point, he takes stunning photographs of clouds and their shadows as they stretch to the horizon.

Many thanks to Sara Blumenstein for finding and sharing the link to Alexander’s photographs.

This cloud piano sculpture/installation was created by David Bowen and was commissioned by L’assaut de la Menuiserie, Saint-Etienne, France. This installation plays the keys of a piano based on the movements and shapes of the clouds. A camera pointed at the sky captures video of the clouds. Custom software uses the video of the clouds in real-time to articulate a robotic device that presses the corresponding keys on the piano.

You can read more about this and view a video of it in action on David Bowen’s website

Thanks to Cloud Appreciation Society member Patricia Ludwick, for sending this to us.

Gemma Rapkins, 29 and friend Kiren Ali, 36, were relaxing by a swimming pool in Ebberley, North Devon, UK when they saw this heart shaped cloud drifting overhead. The Western Morning News added a the image and brief account to their website

Thanks to Lorna Stroup Nilsson for telling us about it.

On 31st July NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day was entitled “Veins of Heaven” taken by P M Hedén. It shows an exceptional display of noctilucent clouds which were captured earlier in July above the island of Gotland, Sweden. You can read more about it on the their website.

Thanks to Bernard L Reymond for sending us the link to this wonderful page.

We all know how clouds are often to be used to describe negative things – someone ‘having a cloud hanging over them’ or there being ‘a cloud on the horizon’. We were interested to read a scholarly article about the history of these bad connotations written by Steven Connor, and originally aired as an episode of The Essay on BBC Radio 3 on 25 February 2009. Steven’s piece shows that clouds have been getting a bad press for centuries. Many thanks to H Brown (member 7173) for letting us know about this fascinating chronology of cloud dread. Click here to read the article.

Cloud Appreciation Society member, Elizabeth Gordon, recently sent us the link to Drink Smart Water which has been inspired by the clouds. She says it’s a little fun and if you click the screen there are options to play with the clouds!

We were recently contacted by the PHOG Water Team, a water sourcing venture that harvests pure water directly from clouds and fog with the mission to expand clean water access worldwide.

In the summer of 2013, they successfully tested a pilot site on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines that can produce millions of liters of water a year. This cloud harvesting method is a sustainable water collection alternative that requires zero energy input and avoids issues of groundwater depletion. PHOG has been working on providing a locally sourced and environmentally conscious bottled water option in the Caribbean, while providing resources and materials for people to start their own cloud and fog collection systems worldwide.

You can find out more from their website and also from the video below.

PHOG Water from PHOG Water on Vimeo.

We recently came across this rather clever – and very expensive – ‘smart’ cloud lamp, made by Richard Clarkson Studios. The description claims that “The Smart cloud is the fully featured unit. Remote, Color changing lights, 2.1 Speakers, motion detection & more. Variants include a “satellite add-on cloud”.

For those who feel that the $3,360.00 price tag of the smart Cloud Lamp is a little expensive, there is a slightly cheaper ‘non-smart’ lamp-only option. Those who feel that too is rather pricey can enjoy the free alternative by looking out of the window on a stormy day.

Cloud from Richard Clarkson on Vimeo.

Society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, will be speaking at this year’s Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall, UK. It is ten years since he gave ‘The Inaugural Lecture of the Cloud Appreciation Society’ at Port Eliot. As well as being a guide to cloudspotting, the talk will be a look back over the events that have shaped the Society and world of clouds over the past 10 years.

Date: Sunday 27 July 2014, 3.30pm
At: Port Eliot Festival, Port Eliot Estate, St Germans, Saltash, Cornwall PL12 5ND, UK
Tickets: Buy day and weekend tickets from festival website

Following a recent media request, Cloud Appreciation Society member, Arun Padake, agreed to be interviewed for The Times of India about the joys of cloud watching. The image here is of his “Golden Eagle” and you can read the full article on The Times of India website.

The first episode in this BBC2 series (UK) was aired last week and explored clouds from within in one of the world’s largest airships. Felicity Aston was the presenter and you can read her blog about her experience here

This Wednesday, 23rd July, they will be continuing their journey across the USA in the airship, and the team will question how the atmosphere changes with altitude and how that has an impact on the life found there.

We always like to receive a postcard in the office. So it was great to get this one recently from Kim Ter-Horst, Member No 14256, who sent it while on holiday in Sweden. The card shows the earliest surviving painting of ‘halo phenomena’, those arcs and spots of light that can result as sunlight passes through clouds composed of ice crystals with particular shapes.

Painted in 1636 by Jacob Elbfas, and hanging in the Storkyrkan church in Stockholm, the painting is called Vädersolstavlan, which is the Swedish for ‘The Sun Dog Painting’. Sun dogs are one type of halo phenomenon that appear as bright spots of light on one or other side of the sun when sunlight passes at a certain angle through cloud composed of clear, hexagonal shaped ice-crystals. The painting is a copy of an original, now lost, attributed to Urban Målare depicting a dramatic display of halo phenomena that occurred on April 20, 1535. It seems there were a whole range of optical phenomena that day besides sun dogs, many of which are identifiable by their appearance in the painting. Although all the positions are not quite right and not all of these optical effects could have appeared in the sky at the same time of day, the phenomena shown in addition to the sun dogs include a 22-degree halo, a circumscribed halo, a circumzenithal arc and a parhelic circle.

Many thanks to Kim for sending us a card so well suited to cloud nerds.

Cloud watcher Bernard L Reymond recently sent us a link to NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. It shows Iridescent clouds over Thamserku and the photographer was Oleg Bartunov. If you click through to the NASA page you will see a very good explanation of how these clouds are formed.

Creighton Lovelace, D.D. Pastor of Danieltown Baptist Church and member of the Cloud Appreciation Society has kindly shared his article with us, “A Survey of Cloud Symbolism in Christianity”

An adventure into the skies…

A magical, visually spectacular show for families, filled with swirling clouds, miniature houses and enchanting music.

Enter a world where clouds turn into sheep, shadows make beautiful patterns across walls and the imagination runs wild.

The show has been devised by Spanish company Aracaladanza who specialise in creating work for children and is showing at the Southbank Centre, London from Saturday 26th to Wednesday 30th July. Full details can be found on the Southbank Centre website

This month, we’ve selected Math Gossens photograph of summer lightning over the Netherlands. See the Cloud of the Month for July here…

Bridget Holding runs ‘Wild Words‘ creative writing workshops in nature. In the courses she often uses clouds as a subject around which to base a piece of creative writing. The next online course will be running for 6 weeks and starts on 22nd September 2014, full details can be found on her website.

Here is an article that Bridget wrote recently exploring her relationship with clouds:

About Clouds

In the watercolour wash blue of the midafternoon sky, clouds block the sun. They hurl shifting shadows on to the ground below. I throw my jumper off, tip my head and spread my arms wide to wallow in the warmth. Almost immediately, I have to drag my jumper on again, as I’m plunged into shade. A chill runs the length of my body.

I want the clouds to clear, immediately.

Closing my eyes, I notice clumped areas of fogginess inside me. My right hip, and my left little finger are indistinct entities. Many small phantoms flit across my forehead. What are they? What is kept there?

I want these too to clear, immediately, and leave my internal world a bright, limitless sky.

To distract myself, I decide to get interested in looking at the sky above, and remember that The Cloud Appreciation Society have been responsible for changing my opinion of clouds. External, and internal.

Gavin Pretor-Pinney speaks of clouds as ‘Nature’s poetry’. The Society pledges to fight ‘blue-sky thinking wherever we find it… Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day’. They’re right, aren’t they?

Clouds are indeed wonderful and varied. From the wisps that are the high cirrus clouds, to the vertically rising, bubbling cumulonimbus. From the little puff cakes of the middle layer of Altocumulus, to their companions the stretched, stringy altostratus.

Today’s clouds are cirrus- I would guess. They are a fine spreading mist, observed by a half moon, perching steady above them. I watch their slow motion, as they widen and spread to veil the sky. Like a skin, too thin. Or as if the sky wanted privacy.

Watching their forms bend and turn, with the smooth running of a yacht cutting through a calm sea, I’m re-inspired. I find the courage to look at those internal clouds.

As I touch their qualities in my body and mind, each frustrating, annoying, blocking little patch of absence of clarity starts to shift and shape change. And my forehead clears.

The Weekly Writing Prompt

Write a piece of prose using the following prompt:
“Clouds suit my mood just fine.”
― Marie Lu, Champion

Can your words form shapes as endlessly varied as the clouds?

We are very pleased to have added some rather stylish Cumulus cushions to our shop. Printed on both sides in bold black and white on soft, 100% cotton fabric, they are the height of etherial interior fashion.
See our new Cumulus Cushions in the cloud shop…

Bernard L Reymond recently sent us the link to NASA’s 21st May 2014 “Astronomy Picture of the Day” video. It reveals in a dramatic way how the structure of a supercell develops. For the full NASA explanation please go to their webpage

It is early in the morning, and it is in a foul mood.
See Cloud of the Month for May…

Writer and Author of “Confessions of a Middle-Aged Hippie”, Beverley Golden, recently contacted us following the publication of her article on the Huffington Post.
Her article begins “When you hear the word “cloud”, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? In our technology driven world, I imagine that many immediately think of “cloud” in relation to the internet; a generally used term for anything that involves delivering hosted services there. Hmm. The word “cloud” conjures up something wonderfully and dramatically different for me.”

To continue reading please go to the full article on the Huffington Post website

This summer De Hallen Haarlem is staging a major exhibition about the sky in Dutch art since 1850. The museum will be showing a wide range of interpretations of the sky: from late Romantic artists like Schelfhout, by way of Impressionists like Weissenbruch and Mesdag, to contemporary artists like John Körmeling and Guido van der Werve. Some 150 paintings, sculptures, photographs and films show how inspiring the sky was and still is as a subject for artists.

The exhibition runs from 21 June – 7 September 2014 and f full details can be found on their website

It is a most beautiful demonstration that cloudspotting needn’t be confined to the daylight hours.
GO to the Cloud of the Month for April…

Artist Keith Epps has an exhibition currently showing at the Union Gallery, Edinburgh until 1st April. Keith is a contributor to the art section of our website and some of these works will be included in the exhibition. If you are in Edinburgh, why not go and take a look. Full details can be found on the Union Gallery website here

And it is a fantastic example of the one-and-only ‘King of Clouds’.
Go to Cloud of the Month for March…

Cloud Appreciation Society Gallery Editor, Ian Loxley, has been selected to be a Judge in the Cloudscape section of the international photography competition “Exposure”, which celebrates the power of the image. He told us he is extremely proud to have been chosen and urges everyone to see the full details on the Exposure website here

Christiaan Korterink of Skyhigh TV in the Netherlands is looking for an expert who is really passionate about clouds to appear on the Dutch TV show “Milk and Honey”. If you are interested, please contact him directly via email at Christiaan.Korterink@skyhightv.nl or by telephone on +31 35 75 08 221