A phenomenon that causes clouds to glow was captured in a timelapse of the night sky above West Yorkshire, UK.

The noctilucent clouds were seen glowing and shimmering in the footage captured by a photographer in Armley.

Noctilucent clouds consist of ice crystals that grow on meteorite dust. They exist at around 83 km above the Earth in the mesosphere, the third layer above the stratosphere and troposphere.

The filmer told Newsflare: "The streaks are just stars but I have added a 1-second frame-stacking in post which gives the stars those trails you can see. This is why they all move together as the Earth rotates over the 2 hour period and it was shot facing broadly facing north.

"Saying that, there is one small shooting star which appears about a third of the way in, at the top right corner."

This timelapse was filmed on June 13.

An epic display of glowing clouds occurred overnight on June 12–13. The phenomenon was reported widely across Europe.

The clouds were bright enough for casual members of the public to notice and wonder what they were.

Noctilucent clouds consist of ice crystals that grow on meteorite dust.
They exist at around 83 km above the Earth in the mesosphere, the third layer above the stratosphere and troposphere.

Typical clouds only reach up to the tropopause where the temperature increases with height and the stratosphere begins, at around 12 km.

"Noctilucent" is Latin for "night glowing". The clouds appear to be illuminated at night because they are so high, that the sun is still able to shine on them overnight at the peak of summer, where the sun doesn’t go far below the horizon.

It is not clear why they have become increasingly common since being first spotted in the 1800s, however, one of the causes is believed to be global warming.