Earth's atmosphere, from sea level up to mountaintops, and even including the view from airplanes. A Fata Morgana may be described as a very complex superior mirage with more than three distorted erect and inverted images. Because of the constantly changing conditions of the atmosphere, a Fata Morgana may change in various ways within just a few seconds of time, including changing to become a straightforward superior mirage. The sequential image here shows sixteen photographic frames of a mirage of the Farallon Islands as seen from San Francisco; the images were all taken on the same day. In the first fourteen frames, elements of the Fata Morgana mirage display alternations of compressed and stretched zones. The last two frames were photographed a few hours later, around sunset time. At that point in time, the air was cooler while the ocean was probably a little bit warmer, which caused the thermal inversion to be not as extreme as it was few hours before. A mirage was still present at that point, but it was not so complex as a few hours before sunset: the mirage was no longer a Fata Morgana, but instead had become a simple superior mirage. Fata Morgana mirages are visible to the naked eye, but in order to be able to see the detail within them, it is best to view them through binoculars, a telescope, or as is the case in the images here, through a telephoto lens. Gabriel Gruber (1740–1805) and (1744–1806), who observed Fata Morgana above Lake Cerknica, were the first to study it in a laboratory setting. Etymology La Fata Morgana ("The Fairy Morgana") is the Italian name of Morgan le Fay, also known as Morgana and other variants, who was described as a powerful sorceress in the Arthurian legend. As her name indicates, the figure of Morgan appears to have been originally a fairy figure rather than a human woman. The early works featuring Morgan do not elaborate on her nature, other than describing her role as that of a fairy or magician. Later, she was described as a King Arthur's half-sister and an enchantress. After King Arthur's final battle at Camlann, Morgan takes her half-brother Arthur to Avalon. In medieval times, suggestions for the location of Avalon included the other side of the Earth at the antipodes, Sicily, and other locations in the Mediterranean. Legends claimed that sirens in the waters