When conditions are right, the clouds immediately around the sun can be lit with a remarkable range of colors, known as “cloud iridescence.” One of the more important factors in seeing this phenomenon is sunglasses… without ’em, I *never* see this, as the colors are simply washed out. More difficult still is getting a good photo of the phenomenon. Given how close this occurs to the sun, you could easily burn out both your eyes and your camera. I’ve only managed it a few times, and then only by clamping down on the aperture as far as possible, dropping ISO as low as it’ll go, and reducing the exposure time as much as possible. And even then it takes a smidgeon of processing to bring the colors out. Strangely, the human eye – with sunglasses – seems better capable of making out the colors than a good digital camera.
2 Responses to “Iridescent Clouds”
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I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this effect.
That could be due to to the way different climates of North Dakota and Utah.
I sure hope you are lucky enough to see what the Moon can look like through a low cloud deck of supercooled water someday, as that will knock your eyes out – it forms a gigantic cross inside of a circle that covers around 1/4 of the whole sky, and is very bright.
I strongly suspect that this is the phenomena that the Emperor Constantine saw that he interpreted as a sign from God to convert to Christianity.
The “Cross Of Odin” design is also a dead ringer for it:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/12/that-fascist-solar-cross.html
I’ve only seen this twice in my whole life, and only once when it was fully developed.
> I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this effect.
Except on rare occasions, you *won’t,* unless you’re wearing sunglasses and actually look fairly close to the sun. Without sunglasses, you simply won;t be able to see this most of the time.
>That could be due to to the way different climates of North Dakota and Utah.
First tiem i saw this was right after I moved to the Denver area, and was working up in the foothills. Since then, I’ve specifically looked for it, and I’ve seen it on both coasts and in the midwest. It’s everywhere.