False sun, moon rainbow and other light illusions

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Atmospheric optical phenomena amaze the imagination with the beauty and variety of created illusions. The most spectacular are pillars of light, false suns, fiery crosses, gloria and a broken ghost, which often unknowing people mistake for a Miracle or Epiphany.

Near-horizontal arc, or "fiery rainbow". Light passes through ice crystals in cirrus clouds. A very rare occurrence, as both ice crystals and sunlight must be at a certain angle to each other in order to create a "fiery rainbow" effect.

"Brocken's Ghost". The phenomenon got its name from the Brocken peak in Germany, where you can regularly observe this effect: a person standing on a hill or mountain, behind whose back the sun rises or sets, discovers that his shadow, falling on the clouds, becomes incredibly huge. This is due to the fact that the smallest droplets of fog refract and reflect sunlight in a special way.

The peri-zenith arch. An arc centered at the zenith, approximately 46 ° above the Sun. It is rarely visible and only for a few minutes, has bright colors, clear outlines and is always parallel to the horizon. To an outside observer, she will remind the smile of the Cheshire Cat or an inverted rainbow.

"Foggy" rainbow. A hazy halo looks like a colorless rainbow. The fog that gives rise to this halo consists of smaller particles of water, and the light refracting in tiny droplets does not color it.

Gloria. This effect can only be observed on clouds that are directly in front of the viewer or below him, at a point that is located on the opposite side to the light source. Thus, Gloria can only be seen from a mountain or from an airplane, and the light sources (the Sun or the Moon) must be located directly behind the back of the observer.

Halo at 22º. White circles of light around the Sun or Moon, which result from the refraction or reflection of light by ice or snow crystals in the atmosphere, are called halos. During the cold season, halos formed by ice and snow crystals on the earth's surface reflect sunlight and scatter it in different directions, creating an effect called diamond dust.

Rainbow clouds. When the Sun is at a certain angle to the water droplets that make up the cloud, these droplets refract sunlight and create an unusual "rainbow cloud" effect, painting it in all the colors of the rainbow.

Moonlight rainbow (night rainbow) - a rainbow generated by the moon rather than the sun. A lunar rainbow is comparatively paler than a normal rainbow. This is because the moon produces less light than the sun. The lunar rainbow is always on the opposite side of the sky from the moon.

Parhelion - one of the halo forms in which one or more additional images of the Sun are observed in the sky.

In the "Lay of Igor's Regiment" it is mentioned that before the Polovtsian offensive and Igor's capture "four suns shone over the Russian land." The warriors took this as a sign of impending great disaster.

Aurora borealis - the glow of the upper layers of the atmospheres of planets with a magnetosphere, due to their interaction with charged particles of the solar wind.

St. Elmo's lights - a discharge in the form of luminous beams or brushes arising at the sharp ends of tall objects (towers, masts, lonely standing trees, sharp tops of rocks, etc.) at a high intensity of the electric field in the atmosphere.

Zodiacal light. The diffused glow of the night sky, created by sunlight reflected from particles of interplanetary dust, is also called zodiacal light. Zodiacal light can be observed in the evening in the west or in the morning in the east.

Columns of light. Flat ice crystals reflect light in the upper atmosphere and form vertical columns of light, as if emanating from the earth's surface. The light sources can be the Moon, the Sun, or artificial lights.

Star trail. Invisible to the naked eye, it can be captured by the camera.

White rainbow. Photo taken on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco

Light of Buddha. The phenomenon is similar to Brokken's Ghost. The sun's rays are reflected from atmospheric water droplets over the sea and the shadow of an airplane in the middle of a rainbow circle …

Green ray. "When the setting sun is completely out of sight, the last glimpse is startlingly green. The effect can only be seen from places where the horizon is low and distant. It only lasts for a few seconds."

False Sun. The scientific explanation is: "As water freezes in the upper atmosphere, creates small, flat, hexagonal ice crystals of ice. The planes of these crystals, whirling, gradually descend to the ground, most of the time oriented parallel to the surface."

Halo around the moon. In this image, to the left of the Moon is Jupiter:

Almost nothing is known about ball lightning, and the nature of its occurrence is incomprehensible, not studied. This is due to the fact that this is a very rare occurrence. Probability of seeing CMM - 0.01%

Mirage, a long-known natural phenomenon …

Moonlight Rainbow - This is a rather rare phenomenon in the Earth's atmosphere and appears only with a full moon. For the appearance of a lunar rainbow, it is necessary: a full moon, not covered by clouds, and a heavy rainfall. A real lunar rainbow is half the size of the sky.

Mountain shadowobserved against the background of evening clouds: