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Iceland 22° Halo

This is a picture of a slightly surreal scene we came across on our recent trip to Iceland.

 

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At the time I shot this, we were already hours behind schedule driving across the country but I couldn't resist stopping to get one more quick "road shot" as this sun-halo appeared across the sky.

 

I thought it was a rainbow at first, but quickly remembered that rainbows only appear when you have the sun at your back. So at the time I didn't really know why I was seeing what I was seeing.

 

But after a few minutes googling I learned that this phenomenon (a sun halo, or 22 degree halo) is caused by the refraction of light through ice particles which are suspended in cirrus clouds.

 

Only visible at a very specific angle apparently!

 

Anyway, there are a few technical issues with this shot. Not least the wide angle distortion which is stretching the edge of the halo so that it's not completely circular. I might fix that later, but I didn't want to spend too much time on it because of the other small problems (mainly caused by me rushing the shot).

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Uploaded on February 1, 2015