Sundog (Parhelion) Information

For those of you who want more information on sundogs (parhelia, Latin for "beside the sun") check out the Atmospheric Optics website http://www.atoptics.co.uk. Look for the topic "Ice Halos" and also try "Search-Index." The site features many kinds of atmospheric optical phenomena with explanations and wonderful photographs. If you decided to search for sundogs, be sure to shield your eyes from the sun.

As astronomer Jack Horkheimer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Horkheimer:_Star_Gazer and http://www.starhustler.com/) used to say, "Keep looking up!"

Update

(sundog, Dec 17, 2010; as usual, click to enlarge)


Still having computer woes. No relief in sight. Saw two more sundogs this afternoon. Too cool. Took bad photos of them with the cell phone. The weather is much milder here today--anything is better than 12 degrees. Cats, rabbits, and dogs are doing well and trying to find mischief to get into. Finally got new glasses to replace the ones I broke last year. They look just about like the pair before the last ones. Liked the last ones best, but these have magnetic clip-on sunglasses. They are supposed to be the new generation of Transitions lenses, too, but I can't tell any difference. The clip-ons are handy when in the car because the tinted windows inhibit the darkening function of the Transitions lenses. Christmas is rapidly approaching and I'm not ready.

3 in 30

Driving home from Guntersville this afternoon, we were treated to three different sundog sightings in just over thirty minutes. My apologies for the poor photo quality. Colors are washed out because of the brightness of the sun and the camera quality. Although sometimes I get pretty good photos with the cell phone, I didn't today.



No. 1, sighted about 1:50 p.m. when we were atop the hill near River Ridge Road at Gunter's Landing. The little bright spot is the parhelion (sundog). The colors don't show up in the photo. The bright sun to the left washed everything out.





No. 2 spotted about 2:05 p.m. on the highway between Grant and New Hope is a good example of what atmospheric phenomena are not. The bright spot in the center of the pink column is the parhelion; sun to the left out of the frame.The pink column and the tiny white spot above and to the left are photographic. Reflections in window of interior of vehicle are definitely not atmospheric phenomena. This sighting was neat because the entire cloud dissipated as the sundog faded with the movement of the sun.




No. 3 made about 2: 35 p.m. driving east on Weatherly Road. Despite the bright sun, you can see a little color in this photo. The horizontal rainbow line above the sun is photographic.




A shot of the cirrus clouds that often contain the hexagonal plate-shaped ice crystals that make sundogs possible.

June 29 Sundog

It's hard to see, but the faint, vertical smudge just above the trees in the center of the photo is the sundog we spotted yesterday coming home from a late afternoon excursion. The color of the actual parhelion was much more red and a bit prismatic. It is difficult to get good photos of these things with my little camera, but sometimes it surprises me and one turns out pretty good. I thought this one was quite impressive to the naked eye. The sun is the bright spot at the far right margin. You might get a better look if you click on the photo.

Sundog Sequence

We spotted a sundog while driving home from Scottsboro the other day (2/26/10). It was late in the afternoon and the sun was setting. I'd told my son to be on the lookout and, luckily, one was spotted. It started out as just a small bright spot, but as the sun got lower in the sky, the sundog became larger and the colors more intense. Finally, the sun became too low in the sky and the sundog faded. We had the camera with us, so my son did photographic duty while I drove.



Here you see the setting sun to the far right and the sundog at the far left.





In a short time, it had increased in size and intensity.





My son zoomed in and got a little better shot of the colors.




After a short time the colors began to fade.







Zooming in for a last look a little closer, you can see how much the colors have faded and the sundog has stretched out.




It was a real treat for the end of the day.

December Sundog

I found a couple of photos that we took of the sundog we saw in December when we went to the Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree. The photo quality is not great and the sundog was a small one, but you can see it right in the center of the photo with the sun creating the bright blur in the upper left corner.



Here's another with the sundog in the upper left corner. My daughter and her friend are shielding their eyes from the sun in order to look at the sundog. Looks like they are saluting it.






We got some photos of another sundog yesterday afternoon on the way back from Scottsboro, Alabama. I hope to get those posted soon.

Sundogs

The photo with the Einstein quote that I've added under the header of the blog shows an example of an optical phenomenon in the atmosphere known as a parhelion, commonly known as a sundog.




Lately I've been on a quest for sundogs. Until recently I never realized that they are a common occurrence. I've seen them numerous times in the past, but now I'm on the lookout for them almost daily. My quest began when we spotted one the afternoon we went to the Christmas tree farm to get our tree. The one we saw looked a bit like the one in the photo just below. Someone asked how they formed and I said it was the result of sunlight reflecting off of ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. I went home and did an internet search and found out all sorts of interesting things about atmospheric optics. An added bonus was all the beautiful photos accompanying the information I found.






Sundogs (parhelia) look like rainbows that get confused and form out to the sides of the sun instead of opposite it, but they aren't rainbows at all. They form when sunlight passes through plate-shaped hexagonal ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. I found these photos on Flickr. Thanks to everyone for their beautiful photos (lucycat, matthetube, and donsutherland1, and to anyone else I might have omitted through oversight). For more information and lots of photos, check out Atmospheric Optics www.atopics.co.uk
















If you decide to go sundog spotting, be sure not to look directly into the sun. Block the sun with your hand or an object such as a chimney, light post, water tower, or the edge of a building. Here is an example of an easy way to block the sun.





I've spotted about six in as many weeks since beginning my quest. My own efforts at photographing them has not been successful. Maybe someone in the family will give me a better camera for Mother's Day or my birthday (hint, hint). Here are two of my attempts to use the camera on my cell phone to photograph a sundog at sunset. As you can see, it did not work; I just got some not-so-great sunset photos. I tried photo editing to bring out the sundog, but that didn't work either. [BTW--there really was a sundog.] A few days after this sighting, we saw a sun pillar (check out Atmospheric Optics for info) on the way to Guntersville. It was only a little earlier in the day with sun a bit higher in the sky. I didn't even try to photograph it.