Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Unexpected Mobile Rainbows part the something 2
Monday, April 09, 2012
Comet Al's Unexpected Rainbow
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Sun Halo
High ice crystals in the clouds make a colourful halo around the sun (click to embiggen)
Monday, July 04, 2011
A Really Unexpected Rainbow
Friday, February 25, 2011
A Halo in the Sky
Walking home I caught this 22° halo around the Sun. These occur when sunlight is refracted through hexagonal ice crystal high in the atmosphere. It is one of the commonest sky phenomena there is. I've seen quite a few around the Moon, but this is only the second I've seen around the Sun.There is also a tangent arc, which is my first one of them. Just shows what happens when you keep your eyes open.
Here is a few images I've made of halos around the Moon.
Labels: Halo, rainbows, sky phenomena
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 17)
Why I didn't get to see the comets, or Mercury near the Moon, or .. well anything exciting really.But the clouds did make a fantastic rain bow (and yes, I know its sideways, I have no idea why blogger occasionally does this.)
Labels: rainbows
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 16) The Copenhagen Edition
I'm always fascinated by rainbows and other phenomena where light is split into its component colours. While strictly not astronomical iself, the splitting of light into its component parts allows us to understand what stars are made from, and helps us find exoplanets. As well, finding these marvellous splashes of light keeps me attuned to the world around us.When I saw these colourful splashes appearing on the floor of the Metro in Kongens Nytorv (which I always mispronounced as Koenigs, well Kongen does mean King as does Koenig), I was entranced, and started looking about for the door or window that had accidentally acted as a prism.....and found the deliberately placed prisms.
The light wells in the roof of the metro have a series of prisims specifically to catch light and send rainbows cascading down on the metro travellers. How could you not love a city like that!
Left image another rainbow in the stairwell, right image, the spiral of prisms in the light well.
Labels: rainbows
Monday, May 17, 2010
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 15)
Thanks to Alan Garde for alerting me to this amazing image of the ISS through a spectrograph, not really an unexpected rainbow, but pretty.
Labels: rainbows
Monday, April 26, 2010
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 14)
This rainbow at SmallestOnes' friends birthday party took us by surprise. You really need to click on it and enlarge to see all the details.Not only is there a very bright primary bow, and a dimmer secondary bow above, just underneath the primary bow (best seen at far right) is a whole range of extra fringes that you would not normally see.
Beautiful.
Labels: rainbows
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 13)
Correspondent Alan Garde pointed me to this cool unexpected rainbow at Spaceweather (you will have to scroll down to see it, but a high resolution image is here). Not only has the glass of the bus stop acted as a prism to produce a spectrum, but you can also see the Fraunhofer lines in the spectrum.
I've never seen this before, maybe you need a particular intensity of spectrum to see them, but I'm going to be scrutinizing unexpected rainbows very closely now.
I've never seen this before, maybe you need a particular intensity of spectrum to see them, but I'm going to be scrutinizing unexpected rainbows very closely now.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 12)
This isn't a rainbow, but a 22 degree halo. It's a bit hard to see (click to embiggen) as it's faint on the image, but was quite clear in the sky.Chez Reynella was at Womadelaide this weekend. In the Rain. SmallestOne was not impressed. True Monday was pretty clear, Sunday was only a bit wet, but Saturday... that was soggy.
Still the music was fantatsic, the roving acts amazing and we had a marvellous time. Even got some sky gazing in.
Me, enjoying the rain at Womadelaide.Monday, December 28, 2009
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 11)
Monday, December 21, 2009
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 10)
A truly unexpected rainbow. In a rice cooker. Thanks to Dylan for this astounding photograph (click to embiggen)If you have an unexpected rainbow you wish to share, send it in. Mind you, I'm a rubbish correspondent, as poor Tony Travaglia knows. S0 if I don't reply from anywhere to a week or a month, it's not because I don't like you, it's because I've been distracted/your mail has disappeared in the hundreds of Australian Science Communicators emails/the dog ate my homework. I will reply! eventually, before the heat death of the Universe.
Labels: rainbows
Monday, December 07, 2009
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 9)
Correspondent Alan Garde sent in this picture of his accidental rainbow. He says:"At this time of year the morning sun shines through the edge of our glass balustrade on the upstairs balcony and, courtesy of the massive A-Frame skylight through which I can view the moon and stars, shines on our Ikea poster of Amsterdam ..."
Dang that's good! Thanks Alan for sharing this unexpected rainbow. Click to embiggen.
Labels: rainbows
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 8)
Adelaide airport, light shining through the glass partitions formed this intense linear "rainbow".Labels: rainbows
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 7)
These rainbows were projected onto our bedroom wall by light hitting the bedroom window at an angle. I have no idea why two spots were fromed. I took me a whle to find the source of the light, and I couldn't see if it was being split or occluded in some way. Maybe I'll pick it up again this wekend.Labels: rainbows
Monday, November 09, 2009
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 6)
No, this is not some glowing nebula* in the vastness of space, but mini-rainbows on dark flooring produced by those glass "bricks" people use for getting light into buildings while having a gbit of privacy. The varying thickness and different angles of the glass in the bricks act as prisms, giving this very interesting effect.*the link is actually a galaxy, not a nebula, but it looks pretty just the same. See this post at "Starts with a Bang" for a nice discussion of people confusing galaxies and nebulas why we thought we were the only galaxy in the Universe.
Labels: rainbows
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The Sun is Dogged
Reader Graham Barnett sends in this marvellous image of a parhelion, or Sun Dog. This was seen at Parkdale Victoria about 4:10 PM 19-07-09 for quite a while. The images were taken by his son-in-law with his digital camera (click to embiggen).Sund Dogs tend to be rather rare in Australia, and are formed in a manner similar to rainbows, but represent the suns light being reflected back by thin plate like-ice crystals high in the atmosphere.
Labels: astrophotography, rainbows
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 5)
They crop up all over the place. This one is behind the boulders on the island at Victor Harbour.Labels: rainbows
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Unexpected Rainbows (Part 4)
Rainbows are ephemeral, they can appear when we least expect then, then vanish away quickly. Rainbows are caused by refraction and reflection of light inside spherical rain drops (see here for a java applet showing how this works) or mist droplets , or prism like effects in glass doors and windows. To see rainbows, we need a fairly precise geometry between the sunlight and the refracting materials.So we went to Victor Harbour on the weekend, during the biggest wet in South Australia for a long time. In a brief break between downpours, I went for a walk to Granite Island (penguin webcam here), as I walked across the causeway, a brief shower swept across and as it passed, this gorgeous rainbow appeared for a short time. This rainbow is somewhat unusual, as you can clearly see it in the foreground of the ocean. Often, if the rainbow reaches to the ground, it appears to merge into the ground (hence the "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow legends). But it was very clear that the rainbow was floating in mid air, above the sea, and it shows in this image (click to embiggen). Shortly after, the rainbow faded away to nothing. However, I was surprised by more rainbows during that weekend.
Labels: miscelaneous, rainbows
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