3 Ring Sun Circus

[Tuesday Afternoon]

On March 20th, Danish photographer Jesper Gronne looked up at the clouds and saw not just one or two but three concentric halos around the sun. Before the rare display could fade, he grabbed his camera (a Canon 5D) and snapped more than 20 pictures. Stacking the images on his computer yielded a pin-up quality record of the event:

"I never expected to see such a rich variety of ice halos here in lowland Denmark--and it's not even winter anymore!" he marveled.

What could cause such an apparition? Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains: "We can work outwards from the sun to explore the mysteries of this display. The first ring is an exceptionally bright and rare 9-degree halo made by tumbling pyramidal ice crystals in the clouds. The same crystals also produced displays on the other side of the North Sea the night before. The inner halo's bright upper and lower patches could be something very rare indeed, plate arcs from aligned pyramids. But we must be cautious, they could just be spots of thicker cloud!"

more at link:
http://www.livescience.com/common/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1931&start=0

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