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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Strange Phenomena & colors in the sky
Message-ID: <740@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 25-Feb-84 15:55:17 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.740
Posted: Sat Feb 25 15:55:17 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Feb-84 17:22:49 EST
References: <1199@ucf-cs.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 22

There was an excellent article on the various halos and rays that can
occur in the presence of high-level ice clouds in American Scientist
about a year ago (the cover picture shows a spectacular example).
I don't have the actual reference right now.  I seem to remember that
Scientific American also had an article soem years back.

When I was a teenager I saw a spectacular series of halos and rays
that I sketched. The sketch still exists.  There were two circular
halos centred on the sun, whose height was around 30 deg. I don't
know the diameter, but the inner halo grazed the horizon and the outer
one nearly reached the zenith. There were two sun-centred rays, one
horizontal and one vertical.  At each intersection of a ray with a halo
there was a sun-dog that seemed almost as bright as the sun itself
(obviously wasn't, physically). Extending from each sun-dog away from
the sun was a parabolic halo.  I always called it the day of the
seven suns when I referred to it.  Since I had just come to Canada
from England, I thought it was a regular feature of the Canadian skies,
but I've never seen anything approaching it since.
-- 

Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt