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A bright #sundog next to a glass-sided building. The sun is off to the left out of frame. The sundog had a bit more color and more of the spectrum in it as seen through my polarized sunglasses, so I kind of wish I'd taken a shot through one of the lenses, but at least you can see how bright it was.
I haven't adjusted the color on this image at all – except for cropping, it's straight out of my phone.
Some recent sun #halo displays I’ve seen in the last 2 weeks: An upper tangent arc (my first!), the top edges of a circumscribed and 22° circular halo, and most of a 22° circular halo (with bonus contrail shadow on the cloud layer!)
All shot on my Pixel 2 with levels adjusted.
These are all formed by reflection and refraction of light in ice crystals. (A great reference: https://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/common.htm )
Also, all seen from Los Angeles, which isn’t freezing…at ground level.
Sun halo. At ground level it was in the low 70s, but up in the sky it was cold enough for ice crystals. It’s hard to be sure, but I think there’s a bit of a circumscribed halo just outside the main curve of the circular halo.
Possible halo fragment. The bright line across the cloud was very straight and right at the elevation of the sun, where you’d expect to see a parhelic circle. (Autocorrect wanted first “pr helicopter” then “pathetic.”) #halo #cloud #parheliccircle
Say #halo to the pylons.
I’m fascinated by the interplay of sunlight and clouds, particularly oddly-shaped clouds and optical effects like haloes and sundogs. The trick with photographing them is that you have to take the picture now. You can’t run and get another camera and come back. You can’t wait until you reach your destination even if it’s only 5-10 minutes away.
Lighting conditions will change. A halo might get stronger, or it might vanish entirely. A cloud that looks like a flaming dragon or phoenix right now will be a dull gray in a few minutes. Patterns of rays will fade from view. I’ve missed my chance a lot of times by being stuck on the road, unable to find a suitable place to stop until the moment had passed.
This last shot is a circumhorizon arc formed by ice crystals. It always appears parallel to the horizon, like a flattened out rainbow, and if the crystals cover enough of the sky it will actually form a circle all the way around the sky. I spotted it while walking back to work from lunch and only had my phone with me — and I actually ran the rest of the way to the office so I could get my camera. I was lucky, since these really don’t appear very often.
An amazing circumhorizon arc that I saw last May. I had just crossed the street while walking to lunch when I looked up, saw it…and walked back to the office to get my camera!
It started out as just a couple of small segments, but as the clouds drifted into position it quickly grew, and at its strongest it was just long enough to fill the field of view on my camera. There were also a couple of fragments of a 22° circular halo visible at the time.
It looks like a sort of straightened-out rainbow, but it’s actually caused by ice crystals. If the right type of crystals cover the entire sky, this will actually stretch in a circle all the way around the sky, parallel to the horizon.
At times like this, I really wish I had a DSLR, but the point-and-shoot will do in a pinch.
Location: Irvine, California. May 14, 2010, 1:30pm
