AUSTRALIA"s east coast has been treated to two spectacular sights in less than 24 hours, with glorious pink and red hues sending social media into a photo-sharing frenzy on Monday night and early this morning.
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But what causes the sky to morph into a blanket of fire? It's all to do with a process called scattering.
Scattering occurs when a beam of sunlight strikes a molecule in the atmosphere, which shoots some of the light's wavelengths in different directions.
Sunlight is made up of a spectrum of colours; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
At sunrise or sunset, the path of sunlight through the atmosphere is much longer than during the middle of the day.
Because this lengthened path results in an increased amount of violet and blue light being scattered out of the beam, the light that you see early in the morning or late in the afternoon is visibly reddened, writes US meteorologist, Stephen Corfidi.
Monday's vivid sunset was the result of a patchy high cloud over Sydney, which Weatherzone's Rob Sharpe said was due to the jet stream.
"The jet stream is quite a long way up in the atmosphere and is what drives a lot of the weather patterns around the world," he said.
"It’s a belt of very strong winds in the upper atmosphere. When you’re travelling in a plane pilots like to get into the jet stream to get some extra support."
He said the southern jet stream has been moving across Tasmania, while the northern jet stream has been sitting just over southern Australia, producing a band of cloud.
"On Monday, that cloud stretched from south-eastern Western Australia across to south-eastern NSW and this morning it's going from central South Australia to south-eastern NSW," Mr Sharpe said.
Tuesday and Wednesday are likely to be sunny, with mild tops of 22 degrees. Thursday is likely to be the hottest day of the month, with the 23 degree forecast about seven degrees above the long-term average for July.
Fairfax Media photographer Nick Moir said the best sunsets tend to be "when the sun has actually already disappeared and only the high altitude "cirrus" (wispy, translucent cloud) and "alto cumulous"(cloud of parallel bands or rounded masses) can still reflect the light."
He said thunderstorms can also make for great sunsets if you can be in the right position to see formations like "mammatus" (sagging, pouch-like formations), which bulge down from the atmosphere.
Put your camera on manual or tap your smartphone camera exposure button and expose for the highlight. If you want to capture great colour then expose your camera for the brightest element in the sky which will probably be a cloud or blue sky
Silhouette a figure, a structure, tree or something iconic in the foreground. It's great to give the amazing sky some epic scale. Composition is important, don't have too much black underexposed areas. Let the sky make the picture.
If you want to be photographed in front of an amazing sunset the you will need to fill flash. This can be difficult with a smart phone but you could use a strong street light, headlights on a car or a strong LED torch to equalise the exposures of the sky and the faces of your subject.
Another interesting shot at sunset is to look east and capture the last rays of sun on the people and faces with a dark or darkening background.
