Sundogs
All photos taken by and (c) Bruce G. Marcot.
A
"sundog" rainbow. I photographed this during November in a remote
section of
Inner Mongolia, China, north of the town of Chifeng.
The sun is to the left (out of the picture frame) and also had a faint halo around it.
A second, mirror-image sundog appeared on the opposite side of the sun at the same altitude.
Sundogs and solar halos are
caused by ice particles in the upper atmosphere refracting light.
On this day, the temperature hovered at 20F (-6C). Halos are white
whereas sundogs are rainbows.
The following three photos are of a spectacular sundog I saw over topical
central Africa on a
flight from Republic of Congo to Gabon.
