In Okinawa on January 18, moments before the first rays of dawn peeked over the horizon, accomplished photographer, CG artist and Twitter user KAGAYA (@KAGAYA_11949) captured some astonishing iridescent clouds shimmering high above.

JAXA had just launched its Epsilon-3 rocket from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima, leaving behind a celestial present in the early morning sky.

Looking almost like a phoenix rising up, this was a rare phenomenon known as "noctilucent clouds."

Although they normally appear immediately before and after sunrise or sunset in the presence of naturally occurring ice crystals in the mesosphere, at altitudes of around 80 kilometers, the clouds that appeared on January 18 were produced by the large volumes of gas released by the Japanese rocket in flight.

Here are the other pictures KAGAYA snapped that morning:

For even greater effect, KAGAYA compiled a timelapse by stitching together videos from three separate cameras:

This is not the first time we have covered KAGAYA's beautiful and often otherworldly photography. Through his lens, the Antarctic appears like another planet, nocturnal views of cherry blossoms turn into brightly colored light paintings, and the city of Tokyo stretches out at night to create a gorgeous panorama of lights worthy of a canvas.

You can follow KAGAYA's work on his twitter account here, and if you're curious about Epsilon-3 and its payload, the radar satellite ASNARO-2, you can follow JAXA's YouTube channel here.