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  #76  
Old 01-23-2016, 12:26 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

I've seen halos around the Sun, halos with sundogs, a few times when the Sun was low in the sky in winter. I also once saw this:

Here is a UFO that I once saw. I was traveling by airplane from Newark NJ to Ithaca NY in the winter, and I saw on the clouds a whitish spot that looked like a reflection off of a glass or clear-plastic pane. But there was no such pane in evidence, and my location was an unlikely one for such a pane. It would have to be huge. The spot sometimes flickered, but usually stayed constant in brightness. An extraterrestrial spacecraft following my plane? I decided that the clouds below my plane had an odd property: they had specular reflection in addition to diffuse reflection. I later found out that this was due to ice crystals in the clouds getting oriented as they fell. They have hexagonal symmetry, allowing them to have different optical properties in the horizontal and vertical directions. Others have seen this effect, and photographed it, and it is called a "subsun".

The halos and sundogs are also due to ice crystals.
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  #77  
Old 01-23-2016, 02:38 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

It was pushing -30C yesterday morning as I was driving to work, and saw the most amazing collection of light pillars along the way. Unfortunately I was in no position to take pictures.

Saw some of them bunched separately high above the horizon some weeks ago, and it took me ages to figure out what they were at first. Looked like a city in the sky. That picture turned out much too blurry though. :sadcheer:
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  #78  
Old 01-23-2016, 09:02 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena



Found on Reddit. How auroras do.
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  #79  
Old 11-23-2016, 02:13 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Fog bow photographed over Rannoch Moor, Scotland, last Sunday.

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  #80  
Old 11-23-2016, 02:28 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

what an awesome piccy - did you take it?
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  #81  
Old 11-23-2016, 02:36 PM
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No No. I wish I had. It was on the BBC website today. Apparently the photographer was Melvin Nicholson.
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  #82  
Old 08-08-2017, 02:40 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Rare pink rainbow spotted over England.



Apparently it's just a regular rainbow that happened at sunset.
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  #83  
Old 08-08-2017, 03:01 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

I assume there's a unicorn at the end of it with a pot of gold body paint.
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  #84  
Old 04-13-2018, 07:51 AM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

It started raining a little before sunset at work yesterday, and we got this bad-ass rainbow! It went all the way from horizon to horizon, we couldn't even fit the whole thing in one photo.

rainbow.jpg rainbow_full.JPG

There was even a little shadow of a double rainbow on one end, and I learned 2 things:
- the second rainbow is a mirror of the first one :stunned:
- the Chinese have 2 different words for the 2 different rainbows.

rainbow_double.jpg

:prettycolors:
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  #85  
Old 04-13-2018, 10:23 AM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

One thing with double rainbows that many people don't see till you point it out to them is that the sky between the two rainbows normally looks darker than the sky inside the inner one. The sky outside the outer band is also usually brighter than the sky between the bands - though not as bright as the sky inside the inner band.

It's usually very obvious once you know to look for it - but most people concentrate on the pretty colored bands and don't notice how the internal reflections within the raindrops move the light around in the parts of the sky without the colors.
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  #86  
Old 12-04-2018, 10:51 AM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena



Triple rainbow photographed in Gloucestershire village.

Seems a bit fishy to me as one of the rainbows isn't concentric with the other two, and its colours are the same way round as the main bright inner rainbow. I wonder if it's just the rainbow due to a "second sun" - for example if the sun was reflecting off some greenhouse roofs or other large reflective structure behind and a bit to one side of the photographer.
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  #87  
Old 12-04-2018, 11:48 AM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus View Post

Seems a bit fishy to me as one of the rainbows isn't concentric with the other two, and its colours are the same way round as the main bright inner rainbow. I wonder if it's just the rainbow due to a "second sun" - for example if the sun was reflecting off some greenhouse roofs or other large reflective structure behind and a bit to one side of the photographer.
British rainbow expert claims Earth has two suns!
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  #88  
Old 12-04-2018, 01:37 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Just 2 days ago I was wondering if a triple-rainbow is possible. Still unsure. :scratch:
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Old 12-04-2018, 01:55 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus View Post
Triple rainbow photographed in Gloucestershire village.

Seems a bit fishy to me as one of the rainbows isn't concentric with the other two, and its colours are the same way round as the main bright inner rainbow. I wonder if it's just the rainbow due to a "second sun" - for example if the sun was reflecting off some greenhouse roofs or other large reflective structure behind and a bit to one side of the photographer.

Yes, that's definitely something else. It's much too bright, a third rainbow is even fainter than the second one and this thing, whatever it is, is in the wrong place. It should be 40 degrees from the Sun, which is nearly the opposite direction. It's probably a twinned rainbow I guess, it pretty much matches the description.
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  #90  
Old 12-04-2018, 02:03 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

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Originally Posted by Ensign Steve View Post
Just 2 days ago I was wondering if a triple-rainbow is possible. Still unsure. :scratch:

Third, fourth, etc. rainbows are there every time, it's just that each one gets fainter and they are in the opposite direction, so they are even harder to see against the glare of the Sun and scattered sunlight.
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  #91  
Old 12-04-2018, 06:31 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

It's possible for non graded thermal layers in the atmosphere to act as wave guides for RF and visible light. Seems unlikely, but possible that light is being introduced at a different incidence to the droplets?

I think but has it though, it's just simultaneous reflection rainbow and double rainbow.

Just this summer, I saw my first ever double rainbow. I wonder if this type of thing will become increasingly common as the atmosphere warms. I think air can hold 6% more vapor per additional degree celsius or something like that. Seems like that would increase the likelihood of refraction.
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Old 12-04-2018, 06:38 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeP View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus View Post

Seems a bit fishy to me as one of the rainbows isn't concentric with the other two, and its colours are the same way round as the main bright inner rainbow. I wonder if it's just the rainbow due to a "second sun" - for example if the sun was reflecting off some greenhouse roofs or other large reflective structure behind and a bit to one side of the photographer.
British rainbow expert claims Earth has two suns!
You didn't know that? :giggle:
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  #93  
Old 12-04-2018, 09:59 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Either they edited the article or I didn't really read it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BBC
So what of the third bow? This is known as a reflection bow. Whilst rare, a reflection rainbow mainly occurs when the sun is lower on the horizon behind you (i.e. late afternoon/evening) and when you are near to a large body of water, such as a river, lake or sea inlet.

Sunlight reflects off the surface of the water and through raindrops, but at a different angle to the direct beam of sunlight.
That's probably what it is, it matches the geometry too.

Reflection rainbows formation
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  #94  
Old 12-05-2018, 12:14 AM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

The BBC have edited the article at least twice. There was no mention of reflection to begin with.
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  #95  
Old 12-09-2018, 01:20 AM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus View Post
There was no mention of reflection to begin with.
Perhaps it wasn't close enough or bright enough to be seen. Them molecules of light are tricky.
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  #96  
Old 12-23-2018, 11:48 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Full circle rainbow ...

Fully circular rainbow

It's a gifv, you'll have to click on it
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  #97  
Old 12-24-2018, 02:30 AM
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Almost full circle rainbow.. Possibly full circle rainbow.. Unobserved full circle rainbow.. Possibly observed but not recorded full circle rainbow.
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Old 02-20-2019, 04:56 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap181221....form=hootsuite
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  #99  
Old 02-25-2019, 11:54 AM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena



Red sprites.

Sprite (lightning) - Wikipedia
Quote:
Optical imaging using a 10,000 frame-per-second high speed camera shows that sprites are actually clusters of small, decameter-sized (10–100 m or 33–328 ft) balls of ionization that are launched at an altitude of about 80 km (50 mi) and then move downward at speeds of up to ten percent the speed of light, followed a few milliseconds later by a separate set of upward moving balls of ionization.
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  #100  
Old 10-29-2019, 09:53 PM
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Default Re: Atmospheric optical phenomena

Double reflected rainbow photographed in Orkney.



Double reflected rainbow photographed in Orkney - BBC News

There don't seem to be many details. I hope it's not just down to dodgy photography - photographing it through a window and capturing the window-glass reflection, for example.

If it's genuine then the likely cause was was the brightest double arcs being caused directly by the sun, and the dimmer ones by a glancing reflection of the sun from behind the photographer - this could have come from large glass panels - greenhouses or solar panels, or perhaps a reflection from a lake or calm sea.
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