Astroblog: The Things You See When You Don't Have A Camera II

Thursday, March 02, 2006

The Things You See When You Don't Have A Camera II

Click on image for a larger version.
As last time, the boys (eldest one and smallest one) and I were swimming, a thin but attractive group of Mares Tails came across the sky. The sun was low on the horizon, behind trees from where we were. Idly floating I noticed a faint patch of colour. A Sundog! My first one ever! I pointed it out to eldestone, who could see it better than I with his younger eyesight. I watched for a while as it faded. Coming back to the house I glaced back up at the sky. Another Sundog (update, it was actually a Tangent Arc, being directly above the Sun)! Intensely bright! I called the family to have a look, the Bettdeckererschnappender weisle was not impressed (she called it a "hole in the cloud"). I put the kids in the shower, rushed out to snap the above shot of the faded remanant, and went back to just fail to stop smallest one dismantling the bathroom.

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 7:23 am

Comments:

Very nice. There have been fairly frequent occurances of sundogs in this part of the world recently (or may be I've just been looking more carefully) but I've only ever seen a tangent arc once, and I didn't have a camera! Hope your bathroom wasn't totally destroyed ;-)

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:19 am

I've only seen one tangent arc also and wouldn't have seen that if I had not been looking into a pond and saw it in the reflection. I did manage to point it out to some of the guys, they were duely impressed.

Nice photo.

# posted by

Anonymous : 11:23 am

Not completely, but I did have quite a lot of cleaning up to do.

I think the main problem with my beloved is that she saw the tangent arc as a hole in the cloud that the sun was shining through (and therefore not interesting). I couldn't get across what it really was. Still, the boys and I enjoyed it. I wonder what sky treat will be in store for us next.

# posted by