possible nacreous cloud?
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Hello, dear CAS, this is my first time posting in the forum.
Last night I saw this beautiful formation in the sky. It was around 7 pm and the sun had just set, the sky was getting dark. I saw it in San Diego, California, on the Pacific Ocean’s coast, to be more specific. It is the first time I’ve seen something like this, so I consulted my copy of The Cloudspotter’s Guide and researched it online. Based on its visual characteristics, it seems like this phenomenon was quite possibly a nacreous cloud (mother-of-pearl-cloud), and I wanted to ask for your opinion.
Thank you and warm regards,
Gaby
PS. Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, I took them with my cellphone camera.
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Gabriela, Welcome! Those are pretty good shots for a cell phone. I believe San Diego is too far south to have nacreous clouds. The atmosphere has to be some unimaginable -121f or something like that in order to get the physics for nacreous clouds and we’re talking 10 – 20 miles in altitude. Generally nacreous clouds stay up north of 50 degree latitude to get the cold required.
But what did you see and photograph? I suspect exhaust plume from a missile. You might check to see if a rocket went off at Vandenberg or if the Navy was practicing . I use to see those in the pre dawn sky on the way to work. Every now and then White Sands New Mexico would shoot a missile to put something in the very high atmosphere. As The suns ray hit the stuff fantastic ” Giant Jelly Fish From Jupiter” blossomed in the eastern sky. I had to tell folks I was only kidding.
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