Noctilucent Clouds

[Mr_Lamppost]

These have been mentioned a couple of times before but I haven't seen any real attempts to produce them in TG.  They have been on my "To try", list for a while as I often see them on clear nights around mid-summer.  Two things brought them to the top of my list; first Oshyan posted a link to a web site documenting all kinds of interesting atmospheric phenomena.

http://www.atoptics.co.uk 

Second j meyer used and was kind enough to share a Cloud Density Fractal that looked promising, this was in an experimental thread using vectors passed as density input to a cloud layer:

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=2648.30

Here is the result, the fine structure is not quite there yet but the colouring produced by passing a vector to the density input works well.  I added the stars using a clip I downloaded from here, I have not been able to find it again so can't credit its creator.  This is where the Comment/Null node discussed elsewhere would have been handy

The first picture is of some Noctilucent Clouds as seen from Glasgow around 01:30 June 30 2007. 

C&C welcome.

[sjefen]

Awesome clouds

[old_blaggard]

Great re-creation!  Your clouds look a little too warped compared to the ones in the real picture, but that doesn't make them much less believable in my opinion.

[j meyer]

Really well done!

[Seth]

good job !

[dhavalmistry]

agree with OB....less warping in needed......

good job!

[Will]

well done

[rcallicotte]

These are perfect.  Beautiful work.

[bobbystahr]

Brilliant...something else for me to work on now....sigh

[Mr_Lamppost]

Thanks for all the comments. 

I agree about the warping, If I do them again I will tone that down a bit.

I have some ideas about how to get the fine banded structure in these and other high clouds but will leave that for another time.