Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucf-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles From: giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles) Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: Strange Phenomena & colors in the sky Message-ID: <1199@ucf-cs.UUCP> Date: Fri, 24-Feb-84 18:35:26 EST Article-I.D.: ucf-cs.1199 Posted: Fri Feb 24 18:35:26 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Feb-84 08:08:55 EST Organization: University of Central Florida Lines: 54At the beach today (well, this IS Florida!) I observed some rather interesting phenomena around the sun. In no particular order (listed here, that is) I saw: (1): A ring around the sun, approximately 5 degrees out, with the spectrum arranged as ringlets. I never saw more than a third of the ring at one time, possibily because it was fairly faint. NOTE: red was the inner color. (2): About 7 degrees from the sun, a very brilliant spotch of spectrum maybe 50% larger than the sun. Once again, red was the inner color. Furthermore, I saw a fainter white band passing through this region radially outward from the sun; I would say it passed from around 5 degrees out to nearly 15 degrees out. (3): Radial bands of red, with a nearby radial band of blue-green. These bands were by far the faintest and poorest defined of the images. They were perhaps 1 degree wide by 5 degrees long, starting from around 4 degrees out. I saw items (1) and (2) together several times, but there was always a large amount of separation between the two images. I saw (in pieces) the full ring of #1, and saw #2 at 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock, but only those two times. Finally, I saw #3 about 30 minutes after I last saw either of the other two images, and no other anomolies were noticed. The weather was: Air temp ~23-25 degrees celcius, high altitude intermittant cloud cover, lower and heavier cloud cover at 1600, phenomena observed from 1400 to 1500. I had difficulty observing the images because the entire sky within about 10 degrees of the sun was a fairly bright white. Finally, a cold front passed through the region two days ago. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a fairly good idea of what caused (1) (i.e. high altitude ice crystals), but am totally baffled as to what caused (2) and (3). *IF* we presuppose highly alined ice crystals, I could see what caused them, but that would (a) eliminate (1) because it requires random ice crystals, and (b) not explain how the image would disappear from one place and reappear 5 minutes later on the other side of the sun. (The direction of travel was north--> south; the ground wind direction was south--> north). Any ideas? ave discordia going bump in the night ... bruce giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles university of central florida giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay orlando, florida 32816