Another one that got away

[mmcirvin]

I've long enjoyed looking for ice haloes and other interesting optical phenomena in the sky. Since I discovered this Web site about them a few years ago, I've gotten better at finding them. In November 2001, I saw a complex display in Virginia involving several kinds of arcs, and e-mailed the site's creator about it; his recommendation was "always carry a camera". Words to live by.

Well, samantha2074 is on the road this week and has the camera with her, and I usually don't make a habit of bringing my camera to work anyway, so this was a lost opportunity... but today, a little after noon, I saw what I think was a partial circumhorizontal arc. You don't see those very often.

Comments

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

I've seen sundogs five or six times in the last year, and we had a triple rainbow here two years ago that was just beyond description.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Nevertheless, I'm sufficiently curious that I want you to describe it. Where were the three arcs? Was the third a supernumerary (http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/rainbows/supers.htm), or something more like a reflection bow (http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/rainbows/reflect.htm), or was it like this mysterious one (http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/rainbows/twin1.htm)?

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Well, none of these examples fit precisely what I remember seeing. It was closest to a supernumary, I suppose, but I distinctly remember seeing this:

Near sunset on a Spring evening, there was the biggest, brightest main bow I have ever seen...full arc and just blazing like neon. Just inside it, where one of these supernuminary bands should be I guess, was a second, fainter bow. It was a complete spectrum. The faintest bow was outside of the main one, farther out by about 5 times the distance from the main bow as the inner one. It was also a complete bow.

That's how I remember it, anyway. I stood in the parking lot with about 5 other people from my apartment complex just staring at it for 15 minutes. Didn't have a camera.

[samantha2074.livejournal.com]

Sorry. I have been taken pictures, if it's any consolation. I haven't looked at them on the computer yet, so they could all suck horribly. In fact, I suspect they might.

I hope at least some of the bunny pictures come out okay.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Oh, no worries. As I said, the chance was almost nil that I'd have had the camera with me anyway.

I miss you terribly.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

Finland is supposedly pretty good for atmospheric phenomena, and I have managed to see some of them... Sundogs, 22-degree halos, and upper tanget arcs... Pillars are quite common in winter, and especially cool at night, when all light sources around you generate them. I've not been able to get any good pictures yet though. A friend caught these:



That's a greenhouse lit up by strong sodium lights in the distance, and an approaching car. As a side note, no, I don't understand why we try to grow stuff in greenhouses in the deepest darkest winters here either.

Once when I DID happen to have a camera with me when something interesting happened in the sky, I managed to capture a shot of what is no doubt the famous donuts-on-a-rope contrail of the elusive Aurora spy plane!



They had cleverly disguised the Aurora spy plane as a conventional passenger airliner, too!