   rainbow cloud
  I dont think Ive seen this before (there was snow/hail yesterday) ice in the sky defracting light, but anyways this colored cloud was up in the heaven today for at least ~10 minutes, I was watching for a few minutes it dissipating + weaving across the sky (before I grabbed the camera + took a few shots)so has anyone seen this sort of thing before?   
  Sure,in winter season when frosty weather peplace warm and surplus water in air turns in ice crystals.Imho this is a kind of parhelia.Ice crystals has another refraction  than water,and such "rainbows" has another appearance.   ;  My first guess was going to be some kind of pollution, but I think Krokhin is right; it's a dispersion effect, probably from ice crystals.That's pretty cool, I've never seen that before.   ;Circumhorizontal arcNice find, now try and see if you can sell the pictures.Quote:Original post by KrokhinSure,in winter season when frosty weather peplace warm and surplus water in air turns in ice crystals.Imho this is a kind of parhelia.Ice crystals has another refraction  than water,and such "rainbows" has another appearance.That link is suspect; it seems to have some type of malware associated with it.   ;  Looks beautiful. I can't remember having seen anything like this before. I probably don't live in the right climate zone.Then again, it could be the government experimenting with chem-clouds in order to control your mind ;);">This person would probably believe it actually is a government conspiracy. Nice pics tho.   ;  It's very simple to make it artificialy in sunny and frosty (below -20*C) day: just splash out a bucket of boiling water in the sun direction as far as it possible.It looks just amazing, like a million rainbows in the snow blast.   ;Quote:Original post by kevtimcCircumhorizontal arcyes thats seems to be it, ok, so it is quite rare (One doesnt want to embarrass oneslef I remember an ozzie friend of mine seeing hail for the first time, he was running around yelling its snowing :) ).I should of been quicker with the camera, like always youre torn between watching something or going inside + looking for the camera only to come back + the event is finished, since it started off much brighter than I took the photos of, I captured its dying phase.Quote:Original post by KrokhinSure,in winter season when frosty weather peplace warm and surplus water in air turns in ice crystals.Imho this is a kind of parhelia.Ice crystals has another refraction  than water,and such "rainbows" has another appearance.halos around the sun (+ sometimes the moon) I see ~10x a year but nowhere as strong as those photos (gotta be no wind for this to occur + temp ~0->10degrees)I noticed somethingsee here,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumhorizontal_arcall the photos start at red at the top + blue at the bottom, yet mine are reversed (or more correct blue left + red right)why?is it cause Im in the southern hemisphere?also according to wiki'In order to be observed, the sun must be very high in the sky, at an elevation of 57.8'this is not true as u can see where thew sun is in the first photoalso'In areas of Northern Europe it can only be observed around the time of the Summer solstice'which is about now, thus here in the southern hemisphere it should be reversed right? so thats completely wrong, unless it occurs globally at the same time (which seems strange)Quote:Nice find, now try and see if you can sell the pictures.since photos are rareI have the originals ~6m/pix photos plus 10 others as well, though I wont sell but giveaway free in the interests of science, email me if interested   ;Quote:Original post by zedzQuote:Original post by KrokhinSure,in winter season when frosty weather peplace warm and surplus water in air turns in ice crystals.Imho this is a kind of parhelia.Ice crystals has another refraction  than water,and such "rainbows" has another appearance.halos around the sun (+ sometimes the moon) I see ~10x a year but nowhere as strong as those photos (gotta be no wind for this to occur + temp ~0->10degrees)I noticed somethingsee here,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumhorizontal_arcall the photos start at red at the top + blue at the bottom, yet mine are reversed (or more correct blue left + red right)why?is it cause Im in the southern hemisphere?also according to wiki'In order to be observed, the sun must be very high in the sky, at an elevation of 57.8'this is not true as u can see where thew sun is in the first photoalso'In areas of Northern Europe it can only be observed around the time of the Summer solstice'which is about now, thus here in the southern hemisphere it should be reversed right? so thats completely wrong, unless it occurs globally at the same time (which seems strange)Heh,I had to look it in wiki,and has found Sun dog.IMO there are two types of effects: 1. Based at full internal reflection and refraction of light in water drops,it happens mostly in sun opposite direction -rainbows 2. Refraction /reflection on ice crystals -various halos,false suns,sun dogs  etc,mostly to sun direction.Your photo has a normal color order (for sun dogs and rainbows),that's why I supposed that it's a kind of parhelia,this phenomena has a circle symmetry relatively to sun and it doesn't depend from hemisphere of couse.In your link photos it's pretty hard to determine where is the sun at all,may be an order is right? (though it seems me that in this photo in your link the sun is somewhere in the top-left corner,i.e. everything ok)-------My 20.06.09 observation ">of sundog[Edited by - Krokhin on June 20, 2009 12:48:57 PM]