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Name for the big glow from the sun in Winter
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Poster:
A snowHead
Poster:
A snowHead
Does anybody know the name given to the sun in snowy Winter conditions when the sun looks very big and has a glow around the ouitside. When taking pictures in a ski resort the sun looks huge and not very defined. Would it be a Sun Zorb ?
Obviously
A snowHead
isn't a real person
Obviously
A snowHead
isn't a real person
Probably a Sun Halo, reflection off ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, when its really pronounced it can look like there is more than one sun, this is a Sun dog I think
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
You may be thinking of a halo. The sun itself isn’t any bigger but due to the refraction of the sunlight towards you (by ice crystals in the air) it will appear larger as the definition is lost.
Imagine if you had a red ball and a background that had a circular red disk in the center, the same colour as the ball. If you hold the ball up and position it so that it covers the center of the disk it would appear larger as the definition of the ball edge has been lost.
It is the same effect with a halo (although when the halo is large you don’t get the same effect as the edge of the sun and the halo are separate and both are discernible), when the sun light is refracted towards you it will be circular and so the edge definition of the sun is lost. Also bear in mind that the light is also diffused by the ice crystals and so the amount you see is less. QED the sun will blend with the diffused light and appear larger and dimmer (and it may have a different tone, depending upon the angle of refraction).
livetoski wrote:
Probably a Sun Halo, reflection off ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, when its really pronounced it can look like there is more than one sun, this is a Sun dog I think
Here's a pic I took in Tignes last year - note the upper tangent arc above the sun and the halos above and below. The shape of the light effect tells us what conditions the ice crystal formed in.
The arc is form when sunlight is “messed-about-with” by rod shaped crystals, whereas a sundog (and halo) would need hexagons.
As it’s only the saturation and temperature within the cloud that dictate the shapes of the crystals, we can tell that the arc was light shining though a could consisting of crystals that formed at around -5, and (as you can see) the higher cloud must be much colder at around -20 to -30 and so we see either a sundog or halo.
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