This is a picture of a stratocumulus cloud taken at sunset on September 29, 2025. According to atmospheric data displayed on the Skew-T diagram, this formed during a relatively stable atmosphere.
Altostratus at Twilight
Categories
Flow Vis Guidebook
- Introduction to the Guidebook
- Overview 1: Phenomena. Why Does It Look Like That?
- Overview 2: Visualization Techniques
- Overview 3: Lighting
- Overview 4 - Photography A: Composition and Studio Workflow
- Overview 4 - Photography B: Cameras
- Overview 4 - Photography C: Lenses - Focal Length
- Overview 4 - Photography C: Lenses - Aperture and DOF
- Overview 4: Photography D: Exposure
- Overview 4 - Photography E - Resolution
- Overview 5 - Post-Processing
- Clouds 1: Names
- Clouds 2: Why Are There Clouds? Lift Mechanism 1: Instability
- Clouds 3: Skew - T and Instability
- Clouds 4: Clouds in Unstable Atmosphere
- Clouds 5: Lift Mechanism 2 - Orographics
- Clouds 6: Lift Mechanism 3 - Weather Systems
- Boundary Techniques - Introduction
- Dye Techniques 1 - Do Not Disturb
- Dye Techniques 2 - High Visibility
- Dye Techniques 3 - Light Emitting Fluids
- Refractive Index Techniques 1: Liquid Surfaces
- Refractive Index Techniques 2: Shadowgraphy and Schlieren
- Particles 1- Physics: Flow and Light
- Particles 2: Aerosols
- Particles 3: In Water
- Particles 4 -Dilute Particle Techniques
- Art and Science
- TOC and Zotpress test
- Photons, Wavelength and Color
7 Comments. Leave new
The colors in this are gorgeous. The warm underlighting on the clouds looks amazing against the silhouette of the mountains.
I really like the orange/blue/purple color scheme in your image! I think that the orange especially helps to highlight the cloud’s textures and detail. I also love the gradient of the clouds near the top.
It looks like there are some clouds above the orange ones in the middle right area of the image. What cloud type do you think those ones were?
Hi Luke, good question. From my memory, those clouds are in the distant sky far beyond the mountains in the foreground. Estimating elevation at that distance would be tricky, but I suspect that they are cirrus clouds.
I think it’s really interesting how well you were able to capture the texture of the clouds along with the colors.
Hey Brian! Nice clouds – we have the same ones just differnt view points haha. We both decided to include the mountains for context and I really like the landscape/panorama vibe yours gives off because every cloud that night was super cool. I would like to hear more about what you did for post processing.
I said that the atmostphere was unstable because CAPE > 0 so I also would like to hear your reasoning. Additonally, we disagreed with strato vs auto cloud type but I think it could be inbetween/transitional. Nice!
Hi Beck! Right back at you with the nice clouds. I appreciate our unique perspectives on the same clouds.
With the CAPE > 0, you are correct that there is instability in the atmosphere, but this is a relatively small CAPE value since the instability is limited to a few small portions of the atmosphere. I would argue that these small instabilities play a relatively minor role in the cloud structures seen in the image.