Ever Seen One of These?

[hausdok]

This was passed along to me in an email by my stepmom. These are supposedly a rare phenomenon that require a very specific confluance of altitude, moisture, and sun angle. The clouds have to be cirrus, at an altitude of at least 20K, there has to be just the right amount of ice crystals in the air and the sun has to hit the clouds at 58 degrees. Supposedly, this was taken on the Idaho/Washington border and the event lasted about an hour.

The second photo was taken by my younger brother while we were at an evening concert on Sunset Beach in Tarpon Springs, FL. the first week in October.

[Rob Amaral]

Yes. R

[fqp25]

We had a phenomenon the other day called a Solar Column. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera handy, but it looked pretty cool. From my understanding it's caused by light reflection (not refraction) on ice crystals. I did find a picture from Google Images:

Image Insert:

137.62 KB

[ozofprev]

That's beautiful, Mike.

I have been fortunate to see many spectacular sights while flying below, between and above the clouds. Even full-circle rainbows, although technically they are called halos. There were times when the 'cloud terrain' over Florida looked absolutely psychedelicized.

tick tock tick tock tick tock. TIME.