Atmospheric Optics Effects

22 degree halo

2011-07-17T21:53:00.002+03:00

15.7.2011

Not a very bright halo that last all day long. Thanks to fast moving halo clouds stacking 47 frames over 6 minutes period makes all the difference though.

Later in the evening a nice CZA arc and strong low sun 22° halo. At this time I was about to roll the wheels to find a great shooting spot but then I realized it equailizes chasing a ghost as the low cloud front was about to approach to stay for the rest of the evening and through the night.

Looking back at spring optics in images

2011-06-29T11:59:00.014+03:00

Images taken between March 2011 and May 2011.

13.3.2011

81 image stack.

18.3.2011

101 image stack.

23.3.2011

53 image stack.

27.3.2011

14.4.2011

More to come !

Looking back at winter in images

2011-06-21T02:47:00.033+03:00

Images taken between November 2010 and February 2011.

30.11.2010

13.12.2010

18.12.2010

30.1.2011

06.2.2011

10.2.2011

11.2.2011

15.2.2011

A faint CZA in diamond dust.

16.2.2011

A middle Lowitz arc crossing the parhelia.

Here's a beautiful CZA and supralatreal arc.

59 image stack reveals 22° halo, parhelias and CZA.

130 image stack over 25 minutes period. Notice the lack of column crystals, mostly plates.

17.2.2011

In this night the cold took my nose and toes. It was rather cold night at -25°C plus the windchill which added an extra -5°.

Registax 6 released !

2011-04-23T01:40:00.002+03:00

The final version is put on hold...but the initial one is available to download.
I'm eager to try it on my favorite stacks and will let you know very very soon how it turned out !

Spring halo display

2011-04-22T18:44:00.006+03:00

17.4.2011

A really nice springtime halo. Those who are not in front of office monitors may notice a faint 9° halo as well.
44 frames. A sample of single frame is available here.

Halo statistics in 2010

2011-01-13T19:30:00.003+02:00

As always observations were done mainly in Keila (Estonia) and its surroundings.

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Nii nagu alati, enamus vaatlusi tehtud Keila ning Harjumaa piirkonnas.

2009 observations page

2008 observations page

Autumn Solar Halos

2010-11-08T20:48:00.006+02:00

08.11.2010

Fogbow spectacular

2010-10-10T16:29:00.071+03:00

02.10.2010

Temperature 8°C, relative humidity 99% and 0.0m/s wind at 08.00 UTC+2 in the morning.

Without the cloud disturbance it was hard not to notice these huge bows. A few hundred meters away on the roadside there was another fellow skywatcher - but wait, after a closer inspection I realized that he was facing towards sun and did not care about the fogbow. Seems that he counted hundreds of migrating birds (Canada Goose/Branta canadensis) who were resting on the field.

This is another fogbow that shows the secondary fogbow fairly well. Additional processing in Photosop brings out even the secondary supernumerary fogbow ! The latter is extreme rarity but can be produced in dark with bright searchlamp (links 1 2).

It's funny that I always end up in gravel-pit when hunting fogbows.

Autumn halo display

2010-10-09T21:10:00.004+03:00

08.10.2010

Here's a random shot during the event, not very impressive though, rest of the shots were more or less the same but sufficient enough to stack.

Forgot to mention that the image on left consists of 113 frames stacked together with help of a Registax software.

Bright 22 halo

2010-08-17T17:04:00.072+03:00

07.6.2010 (17:18 - 17:38 GMT +2, 42 frames)

For this simulation the main contributor are randomly oriented short-shaped column crystals. Minimum amount of plates were used for parhelias and for weak CZA. Long-shaped columns were used for weak tangent arc and for upper suncave Parry arc, the latter shows up faintly on the stacked photograph.
It's worth to mention that in case when randomly oriented long-shaped columns were used the 22 halo bocame very diffuse so shorter columns were needed. The software used for simulating this display is Halopoint 2.0 by Jukka Ruoskanen.

Single frame vs. 42 frames stack comparison

This was one amazing summer display, the sun was low but halo is still full.

23 parhelia

2010-08-17T09:37:00.002+03:00

16.8.2010

Solid 23 parhelia

2010-08-16T10:28:00.002+03:00

24.6.2010

Halo display

2010-08-12T18:15:00.008+03:00

17.6.2010

Can you spot the infralatereal arc ?

22 halo in the morning

2010-08-12T18:08:00.002+03:00

21.4.2010

Pyramidial display

2010-08-12T18:00:00.004+03:00

08.5.2008

Multidisplay

2010-06-12T20:16:00.004+03:00

08.6.2010

On image left the separation between the CZA and 46° halo is visible particularly well. The sun elevation is 28.9-27.6°.

After enhanceing the image in Photoshop the supralatereal arc becomes visible as well. Note: there is also an infralatereal arc on the right side.

Here the sun elevation is 21.5-19.6°. 22° halo still remains strong and tangent arcs are clearly fainer than 22° halo. My vote goes to 46° halo.

Strong 22 halo

2010-06-05T02:17:00.012+03:00

03.6.2010

What a nice morning treat !

Had some hard time blending the stack and single frame into one and not loosing the lower part of the 22° halo during the process.

Full 22 halo in Keila

2010-06-05T02:14:00.002+03:00

31.5.2010

CZA & sundog

2010-06-05T02:10:00.001+03:00

30.5.2010

A bright halo display in Järvepera

2010-06-05T02:08:00.001+03:00

26.5.2010

22 halo at Keila

2010-06-05T02:03:00.000+03:00

25.5.2010

22 halo at Rocca Al Mare

2010-06-05T02:00:00.002+03:00

05.5.2010

Bright sun halos

2010-06-05T01:56:00.003+03:00

27.4.2010

Beach halos

2010-06-05T01:44:00.003+03:00

24.4.2010

Halos, halos

2010-06-05T01:27:00.001+03:00

21.4.2010

Late Evening Halo

2010-06-05T01:11:00.001+03:00

15.04.2010

Circumscribed Halo

2010-05-04T21:27:00.010+03:00

03.5.2010

16 frames.

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16 kaadrit.

A quick shot while photographing the stack.

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Suvaline klõps stäki fotografeerimise ajal.

Supralatereal arc

2010-04-29T01:06:00.006+03:00

23.4.2010

Spring halos 2010

2010-04-22T13:59:00.003+03:00

20.4.2010

In the morning

Low pressure halos

2010-04-18T22:13:00.036+03:00

17.4.2010

Common 22 halo

2010-04-18T22:07:00.044+03:00

10.4.2010

37 hdr frames stack. Here's the same image with Photoshop usm filter to boost the contrast.

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37 hdr kaadri stäkk. Siin on sama pilt, millele on täiendava kontrastsuse saamiseks lisatud Photoshopi usm filter.

Here checking the 46° halo and infralatereal arc. After some heavy usm'ing the first one shows up but just barely. 28 frames.

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Mõtlesin, et kontrolliks 46° halo ja selle vasakpoolse alumise puutujakaare olemasolu. Esimene ilmutab ennast ainult siis, kui fotot tõsiselt töödelda. Parem ei hakka seda versiooni siia üles panema.

41 frames stack. I suspected 9° halo but the stack reveals no sign of it.

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Siin kahtlustasin 9° halo. Enne pilvede hajumist tegin kiiresti 41 ülesvõtet, mis hiljem üheks kaadriks stäkkisin.Järgnev fototöötlus näitab, et kahtlusel polnud alust, ainult 22°...ei midagi uut.

HDR halos

2010-04-06T21:07:00.017+03:00

05.4.2010

Here trying to preserve the natural look of the display (as was seen with naked eye) using hdr technique.

Also check out this 47 frames stack which is heavily usm'ed. 9° and 46° halo revealed, also tangent arcs and more.

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Ülemine foto on koostatud kolmest erineva säriajaga kaadrist, mis hiljem hdr fototöötlusega kokku liidetud. Ideeks on näidata, mismoodi halo tegelikult välja näeb, kui seda palja silmaga vaadata. Vaata kindlasti ka 47 kaadrist koostatud fotot. 9°ja 46° halo, puutujakaared ja päikesekoerad tulevad nähtavale peale kahekordset usm filtri lisamist.

1st April halos

2010-04-03T14:59:00.037+03:00

01.4.2010
I know I can do better post-processing than this and really don't know why I bothered myself with this stack. On the other hand, somewhat rare halo form showed up against the sensor noise and artifacts caused by excessive USM sharpening. Can you spot it too ?
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Tegelikult ma oskan fotosid paremini töödelda ning need kaks pole mitte parimate killast. Tegelikult kui aus olla, siis ma ei tea üldse miks ma ennast nendega vaevasin. Teisest küljest, peale fototöötlust ning hoolimata fotosensori mürast paljastus mõnevõrra haruldane halo. Kas sina ka märkad seda ?

Full moon halo

2010-03-31T16:01:00.003+03:00

30.3.2010

Sundogs

2010-03-29T19:04:00.000+03:00

24.3.2010

Small halo ring

2010-03-24T20:00:00.000+02:00

17.3.2010

Foggy rainbow

2010-03-24T19:21:00.009+02:00

I love fogbows. Car headlight fogbows and divergent light fogbows 1 2 are ok too, but the natural ones are always a pleasant sight.
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Ma armastan udukaari. Autolaternate tekitatud udukaared ja suunatud tehisvalgusega udukaared 1 2 on põnevad, kuid looduslikud on alati väga meeldiv vaatepilt.

31.5.2007

HDR test

2010-03-21T21:07:00.019+02:00

I thought why not to give HDR technique another try. For this test I used photos from 19.4.2009 display. I captured 3 exposure-set in every 40sec. So it's 45 photos in 10 minutes. Again Photomatix was used to create 15 tone mapped and details enchanced HDR files which were then stacked in Registax. And as always a Photoshop usm filter was applied with moderate settings.

And here is somewhat enhanced verison to bring out the fainter 46° halo.
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Mõtlesin, miks mitte anda HDR tehnikale veel üks võimalus. Kuna praegu on halo-vaene periood, siis kasutasin fotosid 19.4.2009 vaatemängust. Iga 40 sekundi tagant sai tehtud särikahvel, seega 10 minuti jooksul klõpsisin 45 fotot. Igast särikahvli kolmest kaadrist tegi Photomatix ühe "tone mapped" ja "details enchanged" HDR faili. Arvestades fotode kogust ja särikahvli jaoks vajalikku 3 kaadrit, tuleb kokku 15 HDR faili, mille stäkkimiseks kasutasin Registax nimelist programmi. Tulemuse laadisin Photoshop'i, kus lisasin USM filtri, et välja tuua mõnevõrra nõrgemad halod.

Siin on samast pildist veel üks töödeldud versioon, et välja tuua 46° halo.

Experimenting with HDR

2010-03-18T01:21:00.125+02:00

Photographed on 17th March 2010

45 photos where processed in Photomatix which resulted 15 tone mapped HDR files what then were sent to Registax for final output. Afterwards Photoshop CS was used for tone adjustments, USM and for ground replacement from a single frame.

All comments are welcome !!!

For this attempt I took 3 photoset (1/1000, 1/1600 and 1/2500) with 25 second intervals. Overall 6 minutes.

Now here is a non-HDR stack of 15 frames. Same scene, but frames only with an exposure time of 1/1600sec.

Here's my best attempt to get the most out of a single frame. Only RAW processing.

And here's another single frame with RAW processing and USM filter.

USM settings were lowered twice compared to the USM settings in stacks above.

After some huge amount of afterprocessing it almost seems that HDR is waste of time especially when trying to keep the typical HDR look as minimal as possible. After comparing these two side-by-side I notice the HDR reveals better colours and contrast but nothing marginal compared to the regular stack. One can almost say, that it all depends on halo display and this one perhaps isn't the best candidate to participate in the HDR-stack vs. regular-stack show. However, a halo display here was an ideal test subject and it's HDR stack turned out petty well.

Winter Fogbow

2010-03-16T21:59:00.003+02:00

16.3.2010

A composite of 8 frames.

Spring halo

2010-03-07T20:37:00.002+02:00

Taken on 25th May 2009.

Winter halos

2010-03-01T22:26:00.004+02:00

26.1.2010

14 frames

22 halo stack

2010-03-01T22:09:00.003+02:00

20.1.2010

12 frames

23 frames

22 halo and sundogs

2010-02-28T19:57:00.010+02:00

05.5.2007

A nice spring halo montage from 2007.

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Montaaž kahest pildist. Halo ülesvõte aastast 2007.

Halo statistics in 2009

2010-01-03T22:24:00.294+02:00

Year 2009 was much better than 2008 except the odd radii displays. In December I hoped for diamond dust halos from snowguns but overcast skies and non-favourable weatherconditions prevented me doing so. I went out several times carrying the searchlamp and batteries but poorly developed diamond dust gave only pillars.
Seems that the diamond dust season 2009 November-December overseas in Finland was about the same...nothing noteworthy...maybe except the monster display by Marko Mikkil and the first odd radii display from snowguns by Jukka Ruoskanen.

Observations were done mainly in Keila (Estonia) and its surroundings.

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Jälle uus aasta käes ! Peaks märkima, et möödunud 2009 oli halovaatluste poolest hulka parem, kui 2008. Tervelt 153 päva halosid ja kokku 390 halonähtust ! Samas peaks mainima, et 2008 õnnestus vaadelda palju haruldasi halosid, siinkohal pean eriti silmas juunikuu raadiushalosid.
Kuskil detsembrikuus pandi Keila suusaradadel lumekahur tööle, mis pani mind suurest rahulolust käsi kokku hõõruma. Kuna lumekahuritel on "maagiline võime" toota jääkristalle, siis lootsin vaadelda halosid, mis tekivad maapinna läheduses hõljuvates jääkristallides e. rahvakeeli "teemanditolmus". Kahjuks ei olnud ilmastikuolud soodsad, sest teemanditolmu tekkimiseks on peale lumekahurite vajalik ka suur õhuniiskus ning tuulevaikus. Sellele vaatamata läksin nii mitmeski ööpimeduses tehisvalgusega halosid jahtima, kuid tagasi tulin tühjade kätega, sest juba eelnevalt mainitult ei soosinud ilmastikuolud jääkristallide teket. Näha oli ainult ähmaseid valgussambaid kusagil kauguses tänavavalgustuse kohal. Kaasaskantav tehisvalgus tekitas sambaid, kuid need olid üpriski nõrgad ja laialivalguvad, mis tähendab seda, et jääkristallides puudus neile nii omane geomeetriline korrapära.

Tundub et teemanditolmu hooaeg 2009 November-Detsember üle lahe Soomemaal oli paljuski sama, mis siinmail. Kui siin Eestis ei toimunud üldse midagi, siis Soomes oli vähemalt paar suuremat vaatemängu, kuid ka need tekkisid suusamägede laheduses, kus lumekaurid huugavad ööpäev ringi. Äramärkimist väärivad Marko Mikkil'a vaatlus ning Jukka Ruoskanen'i poolt dokumenteeritud haloajaloo esimene lumekahurite poolt tekitatud raadius-halo vaatemäng.

Mina ei saa aru nendest kodumaistest ilma-ekspertidest, kes igasugustes ilmaportaalides ja rubriikides kirjutavad halodest, kui haruldastest taevanähtustest. Eriti paneb muigama, kui kuskil meedias on foto näiteks seniidikaarest ja sõna võtab keegi ilmatark ja räägib, milline haruldane nähtus meil siin pildi peal nüüd on. Kui rääkida seniidikaarest, statistikast ja arvudest, siis minul õnnestus seda kaart näha 42 päeval ja 22° halo tervelt 109 päeval !
Reisides Lõuna-Ameerika riikidesse, eelkõige Andide puhta õhuga mägiregioonidesse, on võimalik 22° halo vaadelda isegi 250 korral aastas ning nii mõnigi kord saavutab see sellise heleduse ( 1 2 ), mis toob kaasa massipaanika - valdavalt turistide poolt. Soovitaksin ka Filipiinide saarestikku. Mõni ütleb, et troopika halod ei ole huvitavad ja ma olen nendega nõus, sest keskpäevaks on päike seniidis ja peale 22° halo, horisontaalringi ning horisondikaare tavaliselt midagi muud näha pole. Neile aga, kes aeg-ajalt unistavad teemanditolmu halodest ( 1 2 ), soovitaksin kindlasti Kanadat ja eriti Fairbanksi linna, mis asub 910m allpool merepinda Tanana orus. Selline geograafiline eripära ja subarktiline kliima põhjustab külma õhu kogunemise linna ja selle ümbrusesse. Soojemad õhukihid kerkivad küngaste tippu, allapoole jääb külmem õhk. Kui selline temperatuuride inversioon leiab aset talvel, tekib tihtipeale jääudu nähtus, mis on soodne pinnas halode tekkeks. Huvitaval kombel keda seal pole, on halohuvilised. Kohalikele jaoks on halod täiesti igapäevane nähtus ning keegi ei pööra neile suuremat tähelepanu. Nii või teisiti, see linn on talvel halohuviliste paradiis.
Eesti halohuvilisele tuleb vast kõige odavam, kui külastada Soome suusamägesid lumekahurite hooajal.

Peaks mainima, et kõik vaatlused on kirja pandud Keilas ja selle ümbruses.

Veidi statistilisi numbreid kah.

Streetlight pillars

2009-12-22T23:31:00.013+02:00

20.12.2009

The snowguns nearby were all turned off so the ice crystals in air had to be all natural air born.
The display started around 18:00 and lasted til 21:00
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Kõik läheduses asuvad lumekahurid on ammu talvekorteritesse viidud, seega sambaid tekitanud jääkristallid pidid kõik olema naturaalsed, õhus kasvanud.
Kokku kestis vaatemäng vahelduva eduga 18:00 kuni 21:00

Here trying to make some lamp halos. The crystal quality on ground level was poor so only pillars were observed.
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Siin proovin tehisvalgusega halosid teha. Kuna kristallide kvaliteet maapinna kohal oli nigel, siis sai ainult valgussambaid vaadeldud.

Here's a link to another blogger. She got the same pillars at the same time chasing lamp-halos with me.
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Siin on viide ühele teisele blogijale. Üheskoos käisime halosid jahtimas, üheskoos sai ka pildistatud.

Halo stuff

2009-12-22T22:49:00.006+02:00

18.12.2009

43 frames reveals nothing new. Parhelias, 22° halo and a pillar.
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43 kaadrit ei paljasta midagi uut peale 22° halo ja valgussamba.

Mushroom halo

2009-12-19T21:58:00.001+02:00

18.12.2009

Getting ready for the diamond dust

2009-12-13T14:48:00.037+02:00

Getting ready for the snowgun season. One searchlight, 25ah battery power, dslr cam + fisheye lens and a tripod. A total of 15 kilos to carry around. If I had a microscope to sample the ice crystals I would carry that as well. I keep my fingers crossed and hope that despite current economical situation the majority of the ski centers in Estonia that have the guns start snowgunning as soon as the temperatures allow it.

Edit 15.12: Looks like most of the guns are operating now...now just waiting favorable weather conditions.

Edit 17.12 Medium wind speed and humidity around 75-82%. Not good for diamond dust.
At the same time Finnish guys have been lucky: Marko Mikkilä 14.12 display, Jukka Ruoskanen 14.12 dislay. J.Ruoskanen has been very lucky: first 18° and 35° halos in diamond dust with artificial light source. So it's first time we see odd radii halos from snowguns. According to M.Riikonen it's obvious that snow guns can make pyramidial crystals but generally it's difficult to get an odd radii diamond dust because very low temperatures are needed for major pyramidial crystal development.

Edit: 19.12 After five days of consecutive snowgunning the guns have been stopped in most of the ski centers. The snowgun season is over.

Lunar halos

2009-11-09T21:24:00.009+02:00

03.11.2009

This one shows 22°, 9° halo and patches of 24° halo - especially visible below the left parhelia.
12 image stack, overall ~35 minutes.
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Siin fotol on 22°, 9° halo ja osaline 24° halo. Viimast on eriti hästi näha vasakpoolse päikesekoera all. Võiks öelda, et raadiushalosid tekitavate jääkristallide orientatsioon õhus oli ebapiisav, sellest tulenevalt nende laialivalgunud välimus.
12 pildi stäkk, kokku ~35 minutit.

31.10-01.11.2009

Registax tips

2009-10-13T19:42:00.085+03:00

Having some free time in my hands I decided to remaster some old stacks originally stacked in Photoshop. At the time when the new RegiStax is out, stacking has become the easiest part of the whole process.

Some RegiStax tips:

Always shoot RAW ! Shooting jpeg's instead raw's makes your files 8bit and it shows later. Lower bith depth is prone to artefacts which can be largely avoided with 12bit raw images.
To save time don't try to load your raw files directly to RegiStax, convert them into 16bit tiffs. In RAW conversion keep the original colour space and bit depth.
Sometimes it's good to process your files in raw-converter before send them to stacking. This might add that extra tip it needs, but either way it all depends on the image. Adjust temperature, tone curve and exposure settings. Usually the latter two are hard to fix later.
Basically you can change all the basic settings (blacks, brightness, contrast) but don't touch the saturation part - you might screw up the fine colour detail in halos. Don't over-do your images !
After loading your images into RegiStax choose a desired (1)alignbox size and (2)place it. The size of the alignment box depends on many things: the blocker's size, lens zoom etc. Sometimes you have to play with it to get the best results.
Hit (3)Align and then (4)Limit button, this will automatically take you to the next action, the Optimizer-page. After pressing Limit button you cannot start alignment again ! In case you haven't pushed the Limit it's possible to start alignment again if you are not happy with the results of alignment.
Before completing the final stack you can decide how many frames will be used by (5)clicking the upper arrow on Frames/Alignpoint parameter. For an example if your original frame count is 50 but you have selected 40 frames then this means that RegiStax would use 40 best frames out of total 50 for the alignbox. I recommend to use all available frames because only one alignpoint is used. The story might be different when several hundred frames are used.
Choose the frame count and hit (6)Create.
After optimization, RegiStax automatically stacks all the frames. After completing this task, it ends up on Wavelet-page. At this point it's possible to save your stack. Go back to Stack-page and hit Save image button.
Note: all the settings in RegiStax has been left to default, except the ones above.

19.2.2009 & 08.5.2008

October halos continues

2009-10-11T17:23:00.006+03:00

11.10.2009

16 frames

20 frames

October halos

2009-10-11T03:09:00.004+03:00

10.10.2009

27 frame stack

08.10.2009

19 frame stack

September optics

2009-10-03T19:42:00.005+03:00

04.9.2009

11.9.2009

12.9.2009

16.9.2009

18.9.2009

24.9.2009

Morning halos

2009-08-28T18:06:00.009+03:00

26.8.2009

A nice beginning of the day...a faint upper suncave Parry, 22° halo and tangent arcs...
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Ilus päeva algus...ülemine päikesepoolne Parry kaar, 22°halo ja puutujakaared...

...later around a lunch time the sun climbs higher and the Parry stuff is gone for good.
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...hiljem, lõuna paiku, päike ronib kõrgemale ja Parry kaared on kadunud.

Fogbow at Tallinn-Tartu highway

2009-08-28T15:39:00.017+03:00

24.8.2009

This fogbow was simply spectacular ! If looked carefully one might notice the faint and broad secondary bow which is a rare phenomena. Natural fogbows unlike the divergent light fogbows rarely shows the secondary bow. This is due the poor contrast against the background sky.

Circumstances that the observer is facing on a fog-wall and behind the back stays clear sky lit by bright sunlight happens not every day. Usually the contrast is lost when the sky is visible through the fog. A very tall and uniform fog-wall is needed for the secondary supernumerary bow, best places to observe are mountain regions and bridges.

I was able to take only a handful of frames, too bad that I had to go to a meeting that could not be skipped.
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See udukaar (uduvikerkaar) oli lihtsalt hämmastav. Kui hoolikalt vaadata, siis on võimalik näha ka teist udukaart. Loodusliku udukaarega (erinevalt tehisvalgusega tehtud udukaarest) kaasneb haruharva ka teine udukaar. Põhjuseks on peamiselt nigel kontrast taeva taustal.

Udukaar tekib samat moodi nagu vikerkaar. Valguskiired, mis peegelduvad veepiisakeses ühe korra tekitavad esimese kaare. Teise kaare tekitavad valguskiired, mis peegelduvad veepiisakeses kaks korda. Sellega, aga esialgsed sarnasused lõppevad. Vikerkaare puhul võime rääkida valguskiirtest, mis peale vihmapiiska sisenemist, peegeldumist ja väljumist järgib talle kindlaks määratud n.ö optilist geomeetrilist teekonda. Udukaare tekitavad vihmapiisast kordi väiksemad veepiisakesed, mis murravad valguskiiri ulatuslikult. Selline valguskiirte murdumine annab udukaarele peaasjalikult valge värvuse koos ähmase punasega väliskaarel ja ähmase sinisega sisekaarel. Erinevalt vikerkaarest on udukaare värvid laialivalgunud, sest iga värvi spekter kaarel on väga lai ning värvid kattuvad omavahel.

Teise udukaare vaatlemiseks oleks ideaalne kõrge ning ühtlane udusein, kusjuures vaatleja selja taha peab jääma selge taevas ning päikeseketas. Tihtipeale läheb kontrast kaotsi, kui udu tagant paistab ka taevas. Parimad vaatluskohad oleksid sillad, künkad ja orunõlvad.

Btw: this is another image which made it's way to Les Cowley's magnificent OPOD page.
Edit: Taken Tallinn-Tarty highway, near Vaida, about 500m away from the pedestrian bridge.
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PS: see on juba minu teine foto, mis on avaldatud Les Cowley imelises OPOD veebilehel.
Ja veel: Pildistatud Tallinn-Tartu maanteel Vaida lähistel, umbes 500m jalakäijate sillast Tallinna poole.

22 tangent arcs

2009-08-28T15:17:00.005+03:00

23.8.2009

A bright halo. My old Canon dslr simply can't present the brightness-contrast rate and colours properly. I guess modern dslr's can do this job way better.

Upper sunvex Parry arc

2009-08-20T20:52:00.006+03:00

15.8.2009

The upper V-shaped arc is known as sunvex Parry arc which is very rare sight in upper cloud layers.

Moon halo

2009-08-20T20:45:00.003+03:00

11.8.2009

Stack from 4 very long exposure time frames.

Fogbow

2009-08-20T20:28:00.007+03:00

09.8.2009

I woke up early to get to port Dirhami to take a boat to Osmusaare. Morning struck me with nice thick fog. Unfortunately I had to get there on time but fog slowed me down - every now and then my speed was only 40km/h. Besides that I took way too many moments to photograph fogbows which got better and better but then I was completely out of time...

CZA

2009-08-20T20:05:00.003+03:00

31.7.2009

A single CZA across the sky. The image really do not justice the actual brightness and size of that arc...still I have seen better ones, like this back in 2006 October.

Another Parry suncave

2009-08-20T19:46:00.006+03:00

30.7.2009

Faint Parry suncave

2009-08-20T16:10:00.015+03:00

29.7.2009

Here a faint upper suncave Parry arc. 12 image stack. Single frame reveals only tangent arcs, no trace of Parry. Interestingly this display is formed only by the column shaped ice crystals, no plate crystals here.

Same stack as the above image but without the Usm filter.

Parhelias at parking lot.
About 2 hours later column arcs are vanished and replaced by the plate crystals.

Update for an old post

2009-08-19T23:50:00.006+03:00

I have got some free time in my hands so I decided to work on some old photographs. This stack is made of 8 frames and should belong in this entry.

11.5.2009

After some heavy unsharp masking in Photoshop parhelias and tangent arcs are revealed. Some would call this hair-splitting and I agree on this.

23 parhelia vs. tangent arcs

2009-08-19T22:43:00.007+03:00

24.7.2009

Here checking a faint solitary 23 parhelia stack against the 22° tangent arcs. For a moment it seemed that it was a poorly developed tangent arc and almost not worth the trouble to stack. Afterwards (something like half moth later) a quick comparison gives near 99.9% proof that we are dealing here with 23 parhelia and the case for tangent arcs is not valid.

NLC's from July

2009-08-19T22:13:00.003+03:00

28.7.2009

Hunting rainbow

2009-07-26T13:45:00.001+03:00

25.7.2009

Amazing NLCs

2009-07-22T20:29:00.003+03:00

22.7.2009

Fogbow with secondary supernumeraries

2009-07-22T17:40:00.006+03:00

15-16.7.2009

Long story short. A divergent light fogbow with the secondary supernumeraries. A very rare catch. You can read all about it at Les Cowley's Atoptics OPOD site.

Unfortunately the fog got me by surprise and I left at home hurry with a battery half charged and forgot the spare one in garage. Due to the battery fail I managed to shoot only a handful of images of which the best are shown here.

Image at right is enhanced to bring out more clearly the secondary supernumerarie bows.

In the car's headlights, quite mediocre but probably the best I have seen jet.

This is where I photographed the fogbows.

Some random shot while driving in fog.

Rainbow

2009-07-22T16:46:00.004+03:00

09.7.2009

I was out with the dogs, we got wet and we got a rainbow !

Hided 23 parhelia

2009-07-09T16:50:00.006+03:00

08.7.2009

Yet another afternoon with 23 parhelia.
I got a feeling for pyramidial stuff and set up the halo gear. The sun showed its disk between the clouds for about 3 minutes - the results 12 shots with 10 sec intervals. Enough to reveal 23 parhelia in it's glory.

The clouds still shields the sun. At this point I'm grabbing the camera from the tripod and running away to a house near by me. I used the help of the roof edge to block the unnecessary light coming from the sun.

A sundog before leaving the island

2009-07-08T22:09:00.001+03:00

06.7.2009

A scene at the sea

2009-07-08T22:08:00.002+03:00

05.7.2009

Parhelic cirle

2009-07-08T22:05:00.002+03:00

04.7.2009

Multidisplay

2009-07-08T21:58:00.018+03:00

01.7.2009

This display came with a hot weather, the sun was up high slowly burning the living creatures on the field and the air was full of moisture. This is a common summer display when the sun is about 50° above the horizon. Fortunately I finished my job inside and drove ahead on the fields when the first patches of the parhelic circle started to appear.

The bigger white circle is named parhelic circle - a halo of multiple raypaths.
The smaller one is 22° halo with its tangent arcs.
It's also possible to detect a pair of parhelias on the parhelic circle. Their distance increases as the sun gets higher. 12:30-12:40 GMT+2, suns elevation 53.8°

A nice 22 halo and faint tangent arcs between the launch pause.

Around 06:30 GMT+2

23 parhelia, 18 halo

2009-07-08T21:57:00.003+03:00

30.6.2009

Pyramidial display for 5 minutes only. 23° parhelia and very faint 18° halo.

Later a parhelic cirle for a brief time.

23 parhelia

2009-06-30T00:03:00.004+03:00

29.6.2009

During the heat wave time has passed without halos until today.
This display shows a 23° parhelia but it's hard to tell whether there are other members of odd radius family present besides the faint 9° ring.

22 halo over supermarket

2009-06-26T20:15:00.002+03:00

18.6.2009

CZA and parhelic circle

2009-06-26T19:13:00.004+03:00

08.6.2009

Sunsets

2009-06-26T19:09:00.004+03:00

22.6.2009

09.6.2009

22 degree halo, Keila

2009-06-04T11:44:00.002+03:00

02.6.2009

Strong 22 degree halo

2009-06-01T01:53:00.003+03:00

26.5.2009

Same place, same time as in 25th May post but no radius halos here only a sole small halo ring.
This one is 16 frames unprocessed except the treeline.
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Sama koht, samal ajal nagu 25 Mai postituses, kuid puuduvad raadius-halod.
16 kaadrit, töötlemata, välja arvatud puud pildi servades.

Single frame.
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Üksik kaader.

Pyramidial radius halos

2009-06-01T01:45:00.007+03:00

25.5.2009

At first a strong 22° halo kicked in...
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Alguses tekkis pilvedesse küllaltki tugev 22° halo...

And 15 minutes later pyramidial halos arrived for a brief moment...this one below show 9°, 20° and 24° halo rings.
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Ning 15 minutit hiljem saabusid raadius-halod vaid üürikeseks momendiks...siin all on näha 9°, 20° and 24° halo ringid.

1 - 9° halo, 2 - 20° halo, 3 - 22° halo, 4 - 24° halo

Small ring

2009-05-21T11:22:00.002+03:00

18.5.2009

On the field with halos

2009-05-20T22:05:00.006+03:00

20.5.2009

1 - 22° halo
2 - circumscribed halo
3 - 46° infralatereal arc
4 - parhelia
5 - parhelic circle
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1 - 22° halo
2 - piiritletud halo
3 - 46° halo alumine puutujakaar
4 - päikesekoer
5 - horisondiring

Bus stop optics

2009-05-19T22:47:00.008+03:00

17.5.2009

Bus stop glass panel edges are polished in a way that allows sunlight refract and form a colorful sun light specter. It only happens on a certain time of the day...depending on the angle and direction of the light. Picture taken at 09:45.
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Bussipeatuse optikanähtused. Klaaspaneelide servad on lihvitud sellisel viisil, mis paneb päikesevalguse murduma ja moodustub värviline päikesevalguse spekter. See tekib päevas ainult kindlal ajal...sõltuvalt valguse langemise nurgast ja suunast. Pildistatud kell 09:45.

Sunset sundog

2009-05-19T22:43:00.002+03:00

15.5.2009

At Maidla lake
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Maidla järve ääres.

Solar corona and iridescence

2009-05-11T23:31:00.003+03:00

11.5.2009

Sunset halos

2009-05-11T23:27:00.004+03:00

07.5.2009

An evening halo display

2009-05-11T23:20:00.008+03:00

06.5.2009

Parhelia

2009-05-11T23:19:00.002+03:00

05.5.2009

A day in nature

2009-05-05T14:55:00.009+03:00

03.5.2009

The 22° halo was visible most of the day. Later circumzenithal arc, tangent arcs and sundogs.
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22° halo oli nähtaval terve päeva. Hiljem tekkisid seniidikaar, puutujakaared ja päikesekoerad.

Päeva jooksul sai tehtud 33km pikkune jalgratta-jalgsi matk. Suurema osa päevast võttis enda alla Suure-Arusoo alasid läbiva Vasalemma jõe kaldaalad, millest läbimurdmine ei ole kerge asi. Tasuks on maalilised jõevaated, mille kohal kaarduvad puud ja päikesevalgus, mis asetab jõepinnale läbi puuokste valguse- ja varjudemängu.
Huvitaval kombel elab Vasalemma kärjääri ümbruses ning Suure-Arusoo ja Ohtu kandis palju põtru ja muid elukaid, hoolimata tihedatest lõhkamistöödest.

8 frames vs 1 frame.
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8 kaadrit vs 1 kaader.

A hot spring day

2009-04-27T15:28:00.012+03:00

27.4.2009

A short lived display. When I finally got out and set up the gear it was too late. Contrails and other low clouds started ruin the show. Not to mention extremely bright and broad sunlight. It was difficult to measure the light so I snap multiple exposures at time to be safe.
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Kiiresti mööduv vaatemäng. Kui ma lõpuks voodist välja ja õue sain oli juba liiga hilja - kondensatsioonipilved ja muud madalad pilved hakkasid peale trügima. Ka valgus pildistamiseks polnud parimate killast, päike ja pilved selle ümber olid pimestavad, seepärast tegin korraga mitu erineva säriga kaadrit, et kindel olla.

9° halo in the afternoon.
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9° halo lõuna paiku.

In the evening.
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Õhtul.

Cirrus clouds and halo

2009-04-23T20:52:00.008+03:00

23.4.2009

12 frame stack.
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12 kaadrit.

46 degree halo

2009-04-20T22:13:00.006+03:00

19.4.2009

A nice display. 46° halo, long tangent arcs and more. Later a high sun Parry arc.
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Ilus vaatemäng. 46° halo, pikad puutujakaared ja muud halod. Hiljem Parry kaar.

Tangent arcs at its best.
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Puutujakaared päeva parimas staadiumis.

I suspected 9° halo...in case below it's clearly not.
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Siin kahtlustasin 9° halo...on näha, et seda pole - on ainult kõige tavalisem väikese halo ring.

22 halos in row

2009-04-17T12:25:00.015+03:00

16.4.2009

edit: after stacking some images from the same day morning a 9 degree halo showed up.
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lisa: osad pildid sama päeva hommikust näitavad 9 kraadist halo.

So far April has been very good to me...but still no complex display ! Where are all the odd radius halos !!!

About today: The sky was hazed with thin cirrus clouds...in some parts at least three layers of high clouds. I saw contrails that cast two or three shadows on a layers of cirrus clouds below. Also a lot of stretched out contrails dominated the sky, some of them covered whole the skyview.

Photo below: 16x frames (25 sec. interval) + Photoshop.
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Siiamaani on Aprillikuu olnud väga hea...kuid ootan juba pikisilmi miskit keerulisemat vaatemängu. Kuhu küll jäävad kõik raadius-halod !!!

Tänasest päevast: Mõned lennukite kondensatsioonipilved heitsid vähemalt kaks või isegi kolm varju nende all olevatele kiudkihtpilvedele. Taevas pidi olema vähemalt kolm kihti neid pilvi lisaks võis näha palju laiaks venitatud kondensatsioonipilvi, millest osad katsid terve taeva.

16x kaadrit (25 sek. intervallidega) + Photoshop.

In the early hours.
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Varahommikul.

22 halo and faint 46 and 9 halo

2009-04-17T12:25:00.013+03:00

17.4.2009

Another day with halos...this time a common 22 degree halo..but after stacking multiple images I got also a really faint 46 and 9 degree halo. Sun's altitude about 40 degree.
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Veel üks päev halodega...seekord täiesti tavaline 22 kraadine halo. Pärast 12 foto järjestust tulevad nähtavale ka 46 ja 9 kraadine halo. Tõsi küll...palja silmaga neid ei näinud.
Päikese kõrgus horisondist pildistamise ajal umbes 40 kraadi.

12 frames.
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12 kaadrit.

That's what a single frame looks out like.
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Selline näeb välja üksik kaader.

Another day with halo

2009-04-13T20:49:00.008+03:00

13.4.2009

April...7 days out of 13 has shown halos, so far so good.
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Aprill...13 päevast 7 on näidanud halosid, pole paha.

22 halo and upper tangent arc.
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22 halo ja ülemine puutujakaar.

All day halo

2009-04-10T20:32:00.007+03:00

10.4.2009

All day display. Not much to say really...only 22° halo. In some point the brightness was blinding bright and then back to medium again. It started to fade few hours before sunset.
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See halo kestis katkematult terve päeva. Aga kahjuks mitte midagi erilist...ainult 22° halo. Oli momente, mil selle heledus oli pimestav. Alles paar tundi enne loojangut võis hääbumise ilminguid märgata, kõige lõpuks ilmusid päikesekoerad.

12 frame stack.
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12 kaadrit.

14 frames. This stack reveals a faint 46° halo !
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14 kaadrit üksteise peal, mis paljastab nõrga 46° halo !

Moondogs aka Paraselenae

2009-04-09T20:39:00.003+03:00

09.4.2009

Moondogs are hard to come by. Probably because it's not every day we can enjoy a full moon and usually people tend to sleep at night :)
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Kuukoerad ei tule kergelt kätte, sest mitte iga päev ei ole võimalik nautida täiskuud ning inimesd tavaliselt magavad öösel :)