There was another twilight rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Flight Base that provided a spectacular event visible in Arizona on Saturday evening. The sky was still fairly bright so it was difficult to capture the expanding rocket exhaust in the early moments of the flight. But as the sky eventually darkened I was fascinated by the twisting shapes of the rocket contrail and rocket-induced noctilucent clouds. It was dark enough at this point to shoot longer exposures and create a time-lapse video of the clouds. The colors were magnificent–and very similar to what might be observed from naturally occuring noctilucent clouds at higher latitudes.

Here are a set of images showing the amazing and colorful noctilucent clouds.

Finally, a time-lapse video of the launch and wind-twisted noctilucent clouds.

Time-lapse video of the rocket launch and the wind-twisted noctilucent clouds.

The next launch on the schedule is NASA’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions.