Why is a meteor shower green in colour?

Coastguards in Stornoway were inundated with calls from members of the public who reported seeing flares in the sky on Sunday night.

Sightings were reported from North Uist, Mull and Oban.

The flares were part of a meteorite shower which lit up the sky over the North Sea just after 21:00.

Writer Duncan Lunan explained what was going on to BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland presenter Gary Robertson: "It looks as if we might have passed across a belt of debris from a comet.

"The big bright fireballs like this are usually balls of dust, very loosely structured, they don't pose any danger to the ground."

(Photograph taken by John Alasdair Macdonald of the Hebridean Explorer)