Scots photographer snaps rare aurora and moonbow display over North Lanarkshire skies
Residents were dazzled by a rare meteorological phenomenon that illuminated skies over North Lanarkshire on Sunday.
Not only did the aurora appear above the Kilsyth Hills, but it was also joined by a seldom-seen moonbow in a spectacle that spectators described as "amazing to see."
Photographer Cat Perkinton caught the rare scene on her camera.
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She said: "I managed to capture something I have never seen in more than ten years photographing the night skies this evening."
A moonbow occurs when light from the moon is refracted through water droplets in the air, similar to a rainbow. Because moonlight is so faint compared to sunlight, these lunar arches are incredibly faint and very rarely seen compared to the common rainbow.
Even when they are visible, moonbows appear white to the human eye because the light that they produce is too faint to excite the colour-detecting receptors in our eyes.
By contrast, the aurora appears when electrically charged particles from The Sun enter Earth's atmosphere and pass energy onto gas atoms and molecules. This interaction creates mesmerising light displays in greens, reds, blues, and purples.
Cat explained: "Around 8pm, after getting a few shots of some nice pinks over moon blown greens turned aqua in the aurora the stats dropped and cloud began rolling in. I was about to go in search of clear skies when I noticed the moonbow forming, thinking at first that it was an anomaly on camera, then being able to see it by eye.
She added: "It lasted only around five minutes before being engulfed by cloud. It was amazing to see."
Although Scotland and Northern Ireland offer some of the best places to observe The Northern Lights, moonbeams are glimpsed much less often. Scots were last treated to a rare sighting of a moonbeam in 2022, when the optical phenomenon appeared above the Highlands.
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