I REALLY hope you've all been paying heed to my advice to keep an eye on the sky for noctilucent clouds after dark on any clear night, because last Thursday evening there was the biggest display of these beautiful "night shining clouds" for probably five years, writes STUART ATKINSON.

Unusually we had some advance warning this time that something was brewing up there; webcams showed the sky above countries to the east of the UK - like Germany and the Netherlands - was full of bright NLC and headed our way, so after posting alerts on social media NLC watchers like myself headed out to watch the show. As soon as the Sun had set the eastern sky was smoky faint with noctilucent clouds and by half past eleven the whole of the sky from west to east was painted a beautiful grey blue colour with bands, curls and swirls of NLC, visible not just from Cumbria but across the whole of the UK, from the tip of Scotland down to the Isle of Wight. It was one of the most amazing displays of NLC I've ever seen - and I've seen a lot of them, so that's saying something.

The 2019 NLC season is shaping up to be one of the best ever, and we're not even in July yet. The best displays usually occur in that month, so, again, please keep your eyes on the sky to the north after dark on any clear night between now and the start of August. You need to be looking north from around 11.30pm for thin streaks of blue-silver cloud. Not all displays are as good as last week's but they are all beautiful in their own unique way.

If you're on Facebook or Twitter, find and follow me and you'll read my NLC alert posts when displays are happening.