Parhelion Photo | TrekEarth

Photographer’s Note

My balcony sometimes show me some nice sky phenomenon.
This time I got an unusually strong Sun dog (Parhelia, Parhelion), less than 1 hour ago, above the church of Ponte Tresa in Italy.

Slightly cropped, resized

From Wikipedia:

A sun dog or sundog (scientific name parhelion) is a relatively common atmospheric optical phenomenon associated with the refraction of sunlight by small ice crystals that make up cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. Sundogs typically appear as a bright and colorful patch in the sky at a position 22 degrees or more to the left and/or right of the sun. They are a halo. Other common associated phenomena, collectively called "ice halos," are the circumzenithal arc, upper tangent arc, parhelic circle, and lower tangent arc. There are many other named ice halo phenomena that can be seen given optimal conditions.

jjcordier, superpau, pboehringer has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

corsicastorm (3224) 2006-10-10 13:47

Très jolie; en général ce phénomène n'est pas aussi marqué

jjcordier (25468) 2006-10-11 7:11

Enorme chien du soleil (parhélie), très colorée et de dimensions impressionnantes (en tout cas, c'est l'impression que celà donne (le 300 mm a sans doute amplifié la taille de la parhélie...)). L'étonnant est qu'elle se prolonge dans le ciel en irrisant les nuages. Belle capture!
Amicalement
JJ

superpau (1460) 2006-10-11 13:34

Hola Mauro
congratulations for your 100th photo!
It´s incredible how many things you can see from your balcony. The sun and those clouds seems unreal! But beautiful!
Keep sharing!
Saludos, Paula.

pboehringer (770) 2006-10-11 23:16

I guess that your balcony has some special magnet for special light conditions. I never have seen a parhelio in California and even not back in the time that I lived in Switzerland. The only time that I see something like this is from the airplane. I wonder what you will present next from your balcony. We already saw spetacular moon rise, sunset ... next will be the nordic light?
It is really very nice how you included that downsloping pineforest and the tower into your composition. That is great!
Best Regards, Peter