GOOD news - the 2019 noctilucent cloud season is now properly underway, writes STUART ATKINSON. Late Saturday night there was a very attractive display of electric blue NLC visible in the northern sky that lasted through the night and was still visible as the sky began to brighten the following morning. It was seen widely across the UK, even from the south coast, but frustratingly our part of the world was under cloud so we missed out. However, the appearance of such a striking display this early in the season is hopefully a sign that even bigger and better displays are going to come along over the next couple of months before the season ends at the start of August.

You don't need binoculars, a telescope or any special photographic equipment to see these beautiful, eerie clouds. Just keep an eye on the northern sky around midnight on any clear night and look for any delicate wisps, swirls or feathers of silvery-blue cloud. These are the high altitude noctilucent clouds that only appear in the summer months. Displays can be faint and modest, lines of grey-white that barely clear the horizon and are only just visible to the naked eye, or big and bold, covering the whole of the northern sky in a beautiful spray of sliver and blue. If you have binoculars you can use them to see the fine detail within NLC and even see them moving.

You can improve your chances of catching a display of NLC by following NLC watchers (like myself) on social media, but there's no substitute for just going out and looking towards the north on a clear night, just in case something is happening. As I've told many skywatchers over the years: if you don't look you'll definitely see nothing.