Cloud Prism by TwoPynts

Photography • Landscape • posted on Jan 07, 2005

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Description

I had told environaut yesterday after viewing his excellent capture of a sundog that I had seen them too but never had my camera handy to capture them. Well, as I was going through some older photos, I came across this one from Dec. 22, 2002. Low and behold, I DID capture a sundog! :o) Olypus C3000z ---- Q: What is a sundog and what makes it happen? A: A sundog is a rainbow-like spot in a cirrus cloud. Light shining through ice crystals in the cloud makes a sundog, much like light shining through raindrops makes a rainbow. "They are reddish on the side facing the sun and often have bluish-white tails stretching horizontally away from them," say David Lynch and William Livingston in Color and Light in Nature. Cirrus clouds--those high fleecy white bands or patches in the sky--are mostly tiny particles of ice. Ice can take on many forms and shapes. The cloud ice, however, is shaped like hex bathroom tiles or stubby pencils each no bigger than the tiniest grains of sand. These ice crystals bend light like a prism, disperse its colors, and cause sundogs. When the crystals line up like tiles on a table, the light shining through makes sundogs. The horizontal crystals bend the light 22 degrees, say Lynch and Livingston, as the light enters and exits the crystal. Light colors fan out from the bending and display as a sundog. Sundogs are among the most commonly seen sky phenomena, appearing most prominently when the sun is low. "They usually appear in pairs two handbreadths on either side of the sun when it rises or sets behind a very thin veil of high cirrus clouds", says astronomer Richard Teske of the University of Michigan. Hold your arms straight out to estimate the two handbreadths. From: WONDER QUEST with April Holladay, A Weekly Column * December 13, 2000* Albuquerque ----

Comments (19)

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environaut

8:12AM | Fri, 07 January 2005

Sweet capture, Kort! Loving how much vertical space it goes up...great colors too. Ha! I'm glad you found it! :-)

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Silgrin

8:25AM | Fri, 07 January 2005

Incredible effect, I`ve never observed it myself... Great capture!

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Cosme..D..Churruca

8:56AM | Fri, 07 January 2005

Amazing capture ! Very interesting

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Spooky-Wan

8:57AM | Fri, 07 January 2005

Lovely capture ... you dont get those too often. Well done.

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Hyria

10:43AM | Fri, 07 January 2005

A lovely capture. It looks outstanding :)

cynlee

11:08AM | Fri, 07 January 2005

ah!! totally cool & educational too!! :]

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SNAKEY

1:35PM | Fri, 07 January 2005

Love this dog.........sundog;)............. an excellent formation. had no clue about such things, thanks for the knowledge.:O))

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jcv2

2:34PM | Fri, 07 January 2005

Love those sundogs! There's so much to be seen in nature! Excellent work, very educational!

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sossy

4:20PM | Fri, 07 January 2005

a wonderful and impressive capture! lucky you! ;o) the info also is very interesting! I found such phenomen on one shots I made in Scotland! but this sundog is seen on the body of a mountain! when I shot it I didn't see it, but later on the pic and I was wondering, because there was no rain, but not an hour before! thought at first I stood in a rainbow! I think it is no sundog? it's interesting me! ;o)))

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