Last night, people across Merseyside were treated to a dazzling sunset, with skies turning shades of purple and pink.
While a sunset would normally look red or orange, dusk on Monday evening was quite different than usual.
As the Met Office explains, with sunrise and sunset, the sun is very low in the sky, which means that the sunlight we see has travelled through a much thicker amount of atmosphere.
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Because blue light is scattered more strongly by the atmosphere, it tends to be scattered several times and deflected away in other directions before it gets to us.
This means that there is relatively more yellow and red light left for us to see.
But last night, people across Merseyside spotted a purple sky during sunset.
ECHO photographer Colin Lane captured several stunning pictures showing the beautiful sky - an effect of Rayleigh Scattering.
A Met Office spokesperson told the ECHO: "It'll be for the same reason as sunsets are red, it’s down to 'Rayleigh scattering' of the blue wavelengths of light by cloud or dust in the atmosphere.
"The combination of the angle and the position of the clouds and the darker sky beneath them are probably what is giving it a more ‘purple’ look than usual from the viewer's perspective."
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