This photo was taken in Broomfield Colorado using an iPhone 16 Pro Max in portrait mode. The camera was stabilized and aimed toward the western horizon during the evening light so the colors stayed clean and the gradients in the sky remained smooth. The phone captured the intense oranges and magentas in the mid level cloud deck while preserving the deep blues in the upper atmosphere. The goal was to record the full structure of the sunset scene including the layered sheets of color, the darker interior shadows, and the softer high clouds that picked up the last light of day.

To analyze the atmosphere I used the University of Wyoming’s Riverton sounding from 00Z on November 11 2025 which represents the evening of November 10 in local time. The sounding shows a dry lower troposphere and a distinct moist layer centered between 500 and 400 millibars which supports the formation of altostratus and altocumulus. A second moist layer near 250 millibars corresponds to the thin cirrus that carried the upper pink tones in the image. The profile was stable with no buoyant energy and no CAPE which favors smooth stratified clouds rather than deep convection. These layers matched the visual appearance in the photo where the mid level clouds carried the strong orange and red light while the higher cirrus took on softer pink illumination as the sun moved below the horizon.