Crepuscular and Anticrepuscular Rays
All photos taken by and (c) Bruce G. Marcot.
Crepuscular rays are the beautiful streaks of sunlight usually seen at sunset or when the sun is low in the sky, looking toward the direction of the sun so that the rays seem to diverge from the point of the sun.
Anticrepuscular rays are the same phenomenon, but as viewed from the anti-point facing away from the sun, where the rays seem to converge.
Whether they seem to diverge or converge is only an illusion of perspective, like standing on a railroad track and seeing the tracks as non-parallel lines.
Enjoy this collage of "rays" from some interesting points around the world.
Crepuscular
Rays
Sunset at Puerto Varas in Chile:
Sunset, in the village of Monkoto in the heart of the Congo River Basin, in
Democratic Republic of Congo, central tropical Africa:
Sunset at a ger ("yurt") camp in Gorkhi-Terelk
National Park, in central Mongolia,
central Asia.
Sunset on the Gobi Desert steppe of
southern Mongolia, central Asia.
Sunset on the Gobi Desert steppe of southern Mongolia, central Asia:
Anticrepuscular Rays
Scenes from a flight over central Africa, from Republic of Congo to Gabon ...
showing how anticrepuscular rays, opposite the sun,
seem to converge to a vanishing point on the horizon from high in the
air.
The following shot is a rarity: we are flying nearly even and through an
anticrepuscular ray, just as the sun is reaching the horizon
on the other side.
Here we split two anticrepuscular rays beneath us, that again converge to the
horizon.
It was a spectacular sight and flight!
