Fogbow

I observed a fogbow this morning. A fogbow is essentially a rainbow, but the drops of water are so small diffraction robs it of color. The camera did not do it justice, the bow was an obvious white arc in the sky. Unsharp masking helps to make it visible. Note the dark edge inside it, this is part of a supernumerary.

Fogbow

Enhanced image



Christmas CZA

I got treated with a beautiful CZA on Christmas.

CZA behind some altocumulus

46° halo

The 46° is a large, rare halo. It is typically very faint and easily missed, and the 22° halo might not even be bright. It should always be searched for though, very carefully too. The image had to be heavily unsharp masked for it to be seen easily.

Faint 46° halo

Original image

Large scale diffraction

While viewing a lake, there was a fallen tree in it and waves heading perpendicular to it. It left a pattern behind it which looked like light diffraction, which is the cause of iridescence and coronae. Diffraction is when waves bend around an obstacle and interfere with other light waves, some cancel each other out and others amplify each other.

Water waves bending around a log

Simulated corona by shining a laser through a small

pinhole

120 degree parhelion & Parhelic circle

I got to see a 120 degree parhelion today. It was the only halo in the sky at the moment, so you should always look all around the sky! Later I saw a parhelic circle segment. There was a mixture of natural cirri and contrails, a sundog showed up in the contrails, but it was not a good one. Contrails just never seem to have those good orientations!

120 degree parhelion

Faint parhelic circle, its in the middle of the image.

Update: Later in the evening there was a faint circumzenith arc and a bright sundog. The sundog was hard to photograph, a lot of trees around here!

 

Another sundog

I observed another sundog this afternoon. It was very faint, so the picture is edited quite a bit.

Sundog

Saw a sundog and 22 degree halo this evening.

Clear air

Recently, there was a major front that passed over. Fronts are like air vacuums, cleaning the air. This happens because the dust in the air either forms cloud droplets or are absorbed by cloud droplets, the front then moves away with the dust or sends it back to the ground by rain. This is what happened, and the air is very clean. How can you tell? Usually there is an aureole around the sun by larger particles scattering light forward. It is typically a couple degrees wide, but if there is little or no aureole it means the air is really clean. In places in Antarctica or up above cirrus clouds, the effect is very striking.

Pileus, Shadows, and Colors 8/17 2010

My dad and I were by the river and were treated with a beautiful sky August 17 last year. There were large cumulus congestus clouds everywhere topped with pileus clouds. Pileus clouds tend to form all at once, meaning the droplets are of uniform size. That means good iridescence! And just that happened, I've not yet seen iridescence as good as this day. After that, long shadows were cast on the upper cloud layer.

Pileus clouds and planes

Beautifully iridescent cloud. This image has

not been enhanced in anyway.

Long cloud shadows

Another dewbow!

I saw another dewbow this morning, it was much better than my previous observation. It was much brighter than in the picture, and showed very well as you moved, very obvious.

See the faint arc?

Tiny Dew Bow

I observed a small dew bow in a spider web connecting a few blades of grass. Standing up, it showed bits of color as you moved your head.

Unfocused image, if the image is focused it

is practically invisible.

Heavily unfocused, see the colors?



Rare halo display in Fall

I observed a spectacular halo display the 12th of November. You can see this display on OpticsPOD, this post just has more pictures of the halos.

The halos observed were:

• 22 degree halo
• Sundog
• Circumzenith arc
• Upper tangent arc/circumscribed halo
• Parry arc
• Parhelic circle
• 120 degree parhelion
• Supralateral arc
• Infralateral arc
• 46 degree halo
• Lowitz arc
• Wegener arc

Displays like this will happen, as long as you keep looking for them!

Parhelic circle

Infralateral arc (look carefully!)

Upper tangent, Parry, and Lowitz arcs. This halo

was much brighter than appears in the image.

Wegener arc, the image has been unsharp masked

so the rare halo shows up more clearly.

Later in the day, a CZA and supralateral

arc appeared in the sky.