We’ve had a couple of storms run through Los Angeles over the past week. Last Friday, I went up to the top of a parking structure after work to look at the clouds, and stayed to watch a double rainbow and the play of light at sunset.
This was the view that surprised me the most: Bright orange (a little more magenta in real life than it looks here in the photo) on the underside of the clouds, but plain gray on the sides.
Believe it or not, this is looking *away* from the sun. Sun rays are (at this distance, anyway) basically parallel, and a trick of perspective makes it look like they converge toward the sun or, in this direction, toward the point exactly opposite, like looking down a long hallway.
Ever since I read that these were possible under the right circumstances, I’ve been hoping to spot them and (if possible) photograph them. I saw some once while looking toward the mountains a year or two ago, but they were too faint to photograph. Naturally, when I finally saw them again, I was driving, and didn’t have time to stop and aim. Amazingly enough, one of the photos I took just pointing the camera out the window actually caught the rays!
Contrast enhanced to make the rays more visible. You can also check out the unmodified version.
While stopped at a traffic signal last night, I looked off toward the crescent Moon where it sat near the horizon, curve pointed downward and slightly to the right. An airplane flew past, on approach to land at a nearby airport.
The flight path, distance and viewing angle made it look like the airplane was the same size as the Moon, and it passed by just below the crescent.
If only I’d had a camera, preferably one with really fast film and a good zoom lens…
I saw this amazing circumhorizon arc around 1:30 this afternoon. 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!
Lesson learned: always bring the 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.
The whole thing had vanished by 1:50, as the clouds drifted out of alignment, though I did see a more complete circular halo later on.
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.
They’re a lot less common than the 22-degree halos. I’ve seen and photographed a ton of those over just a few years, but this is maybe the second time I’ve seen something like this. Fourth if you count the two feathery fragments I’ve seen.
At times like this, I really wish I had a DSLR, but the point-and-shoot will do in a pinch.
*On the other hand, when I went back, I pointed it out to a couple of people at the office who are into photography, since it was visible through the windows on one side of the building. One of my co-workers has a digital SLR and carries it with him, so he went outside and got some great shots. If I hadn’t taken a late lunch and chosen to walk anyway and been in the habit of looking for halos and forgotten to bring my camera, chances are no one in the office would have seen it.
Update (May 17): I just discovered that there are people who think these clouds are connected to earthquakes. No, they aren’t. They’re caused by ice crystals refracting sunlight, just like most halos, and have been seen in many places that didn’t have earthquakes.
A mosaic of four photos I took this afternoon of a full 22° halo around the sun. It was extremely hazy, and the halo was almost impossible to see without sunglasses because of the glare. I actually stopped the exposure down in order to get the halo.
A few minutes earlier (and a few miles away) I also saw a faint fragment of a circumhorizontal arc. Oddly enough, it was the same time of day, time of year, direction of the sky, and stretch of road as the last one I saw! If I drove that stretch of road regularly, I wouldn’t be so surprised, but I’m only rarely in that area at lunchtime.
Update: About a month later, I saw a really clear circumhorizon arc (or rainbow cloud)…from my office building’s parking lot!
