Friday, June 20, 2008

Part of a HUGE sundog or ???

Very strange rainbow I caught at 11 a.m. in the eastern sky, about 45 degrees above the horizon. No clouds to the west so I couldn't check to see if it was part of a really, really huge sundog. If not that, I don't know WTH. Any knowhow out there?

19 comments:

  1. If it wasn't part of a true rainbow, my guess would be a circumhorizon arc.

    Look for a circumhorizon arc near to noon near to the summer solstice

    ReplyDelete
  2. thank you, tombo -- I checked & that sure looks like what I see.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous10:41 PM

    I have no technical knowledge of such, but if I'd seen this, I'd probably be moved to a sense of wonder at the beauty and mystery that can present itself in the regular stuff that happens all around us all the time, if only we're attentive. This is a sign of that.

    Or a circum-whatchacallit, however you choose to see it, I guess...

    Nice shot, either way. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. ad -- I'm half & half mystery and want-to-know. The there was a bit on the net about a similar phenomenon occurring sometime shortly before the Szechuan earthquake,which of course arroused my oh-oh reaction.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11:25 PM

    Wow! See? If we're attentive! Hey, the animals know stuff like that. Why don't we?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous2:41 AM

    Nice photo. I have to admit my ignorance and the fact that I had to look up sundog to see what your were talking about.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ditto. Learned a new word today.

    Lovely phenomenon.

    ReplyDelete
  8. ad -- but then the animals don't worry about spam or the World Series or Global Warming.

    steve -- sundogs are very common in these parts, as is the term, so I forget that I didn't know the word until I arrived in Prescott.

    pb -- it was lovely, but also eerie.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous8:53 AM

    Granny J, could you post a wider view of the sundog? I'd like to see it in relation to the whole sky.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous10:35 AM

    Good point.

    ReplyDelete
  11. style -- just a couple degrees of arc, maybe, if that's the question...

    ad -- lucky critters.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I have no idea what it is called. But your photo is magnificent.

    Mari-Nanci
    Photos-City-Mine

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous7:45 PM

    Oh oh, you're not saying an earthquake is on the way??

    NOooooo!!!!!

    Say it ain't so, Joe!

    ~Anon in AV.

    ReplyDelete
  14. SnS -- it was a fascinating sight indeed.

    anon ave -- any link to earthquakes is very, very tenuous. Tombo's link doesn't mention any particular part of the earth, so such a phenomenon could easily occur where earthquakes never, never (well, hardly ever) occur.

    ReplyDelete
  15. FYI, a local Flickr user caught a wider-angle shot of this here.

    ReplyDelete
  16. tombo -- my, that lady has posted a bunch of AWESOME local photos! And she managed to get enough color out of that rainbow that she didn't have to go to PhotoShop to make sure it showed up!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Yeah, Brandy is a pretty dang awesome photog. :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. tombo -- a suggestion for a post: prep a good list of Prescott area picture collections on Flickr or any other picture URL you might frequent.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Nice photo of spectacular event. Never heard the term "sundog" before and had to go to Wikipedia to find out what it was.
    Thanks for the new knowledge.

    ReplyDelete