The first is from Wednesday morning: the moon and venus in the morning sky, keeping company. Venus, it is called "Morgenstern" here: "morning star", even though it is of course a planet. Nice to see it before the clouds moved in.
And the second one is from this afternoon, a rare sky phenomenon: a (half) sundog. It was visible in the cloud "hole", the rainbow-colored round spot:
Sun dogs are also called mock suns or phantom suns, and are "an atmospheric phenomenon that consists of a pair of bright spots on either side on the sun, often co-occurring with a luminous ring known as a 22° halo. Sun dogs are a member of a large family of halos, created by light interacting with ice crystals in the atmosphere. (More here: wiki/Sundog, in German they are called "Nebensonne", and the scientific name is: Parhelion).
I probably wouldn't have been able to place it, but last year i saw my first full sundog, and caught this picture:
Such a joy, to look up and see those sky moments. Neat, too, that this happened right at skywatch friday.... plus, with sun and venus as photo objects, the photoalso fits into the new photofriday challenge "large" ;)
Here's the post from back then: sundogs in the neigbourhood
7 comments:
I see Sundogs quite often at home in BC, but I saw the first one I can remember seeing here on vacation in Los Angeles. I lived here for many years, but maybe I just wasn't watching the sky as much then. - Margy
that's something new for me. lovely skies.
I just posted one from Virginia! http://webcroft.blogspot.com/2016/01/sunbow-sunset-and-stoplights.html
You captures some amazing skies!
Beautiful and unusual!! Great captures!
Thanks! Glad you enjoy it. Still happy about catching it, and it was due to a detour that I came across it: I went to the supermarket and for a walk, and on the way I saw that a truck had broken down in the other direction. “oh no”, I thought, making a mental note to take the longer way home that doesn’t lead through that area, but is a loop. Well. And so I drove back that loop, and it was there, on the way, that I saw the sundog, and just some metres further was a parking spot, so i could pull to the side and take a photo. a minute later it wasn't visible anymore, probably hidden by the clouds.
Linda, that is cool about your sundog / sunbow, thanks for the link! i like "sunbow" as name for it.
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