See also interesting Clouds
This is a 22° halo. It is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a halo with an apparent radius of approximately 22° around the Sun. It forms as sunlight is refracted by millions of hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. As no light is refracted at angles smaller than 22°, the sky is darker inside the halo. Like other halos, 22° halos appear when the sky is covered by thin cirrus or cirrostratus clouds that often come a few days before a large storm front.
Moon rainbow
Crepuscular rays are created when sunlight shines through gaps in clouds and continues through an atmosphere that contains dust and/or haze. This dust or haze scatters some of the bright light that can be seen against the darker cloud and/or darker blue sky background. The rays are actually parallel, but seen from the observer’s perspective, they appear to radiate from the sun.
“Rainbow 2”
Took these right after some rain. Interesting visual phenomenon with the double rainbow and the circle… the center of the circle of the rainbow has to do with where my head was (the shadow of my head creates the anti-solar point, the center of the rainbow), and I was in-line with that house and the sun at my back (this was late in the day and the sun was low, so the anti-solar point is low and near that house at the center of the image).
“Rainbow 1”
Took this right after some rain. Interesting visual phenomenon, the lighter tones in the rainbow semi-circle. Which is expected… rainbows are typically lighter in color underneath (due to how the non-rainbow-forming light rays reflect in the same raindrops), and the center of the circle of a rainbow has to do with where my head was (the shadow of my head creates the anti-solar point, the center of the rainbow), and I was in-line with that house and the sun at my back (this was late in the day and the sun was low, so the anti-solar point is low and near that house at the center of the image).
“Fall Sunrise 20 – 2”
A sun dog, also called a parhelion, is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the Sun. Two sun dogs often flank the Sun within a 22° halo. They are caused by the refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in the atmosphere. Sun dogs typically appear as a pair of subtly colored patches of light, around 22° to the left and right of the Sun, and at the same altitude above the horizon as the Sun. Sun dogs are red-colored at the side nearest the Sun; farther out the colors grade through oranges to blue. The colors overlap considerably and are muted, never pure or saturated.
“Summer Clouds 1 – 10 & 11”
Yes, the colors really were that orange and blue. Freaky looking sky. The sun was setting (behind the field of view of the camera… you can see the tree tops only, lit by the sun), which created this bizarre effect.
“Spring Storm 1 – 3”
The low-hanging pouches in orange in the distance are mammatus clouds. Mammatus is a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud, typically a cumulonimbus raincloud. Mammatus are most often associated with anvil clouds and also severe thunderstorms. The formation mechanisms hypothesized for mammatus clouds include sharp gradients in temperature, moisture and momentum (wind shear) across the anvil cloud/sub-cloud air boundary.
“Summer Dusk 1”
Supercell seen from a distance which also shows the raining coming down in a localized area across the lake. This was near sunset at dusk.
This is a 22° halo. It is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a halo with an apparent radius of approximately 22° around the Sun. It forms as sunlight is refracted by millions of hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. As no light is refracted at angles smaller than 22°, the sky is darker inside the halo. Like other halos, 22° halos appear when the sky is covered by thin cirrus or cirrostratus clouds that often come a few days before a large storm front.
“Sun pillar”
Vertical light above the setting sun. A light pillar or ice pillar is an atmospheric optical phenomenon in which a vertical beam of light appears to extend above and/or below a light source. The effect is created by the reflection of light from tiny ice crystals that are suspended in the atmosphere or that compose high-altitude clouds (e.g. cirrostratus or cirrus clouds).If the light comes from the Sun (usually when it is near or even below the horizon), the phenomenon is called a sun pillar or solar pillar. Unlike a light beam, a light pillar is not physically located above or below the light source. Its appearance as a vertical line is an optical illusion, resulting from the collective reflection off the ice crystals; but only those that are in the common vertical plane, direct the light rays towards the observer (see the drawing)
