Observing sky phenomena is easy. It requires nothing but our attention. Unfortunately, for far too much of my life, I paid little or no attention. Except for an occasional rainbow or sundog, I remained blissfully unaware even of the existence of many of these not-so-unusual sights. Only after reading Fred Schaaf’s excellent book Seeing the Sky did I realize their abundance and variety.
Here are a couple more photos. The first is a sun pillar, taken just before sunrise in February of last year. It is a shaft of light extending upward from the sun (in this case about ten or twelve degrees) created by the reflection of the sunlight off of ice crystals in the sky.
Sun Pillar 9 February 2011 / Copyright 2012 Robert D. Vickers, Jr.
The second photo is a 22 degree solar halo. I saw this one morning while driving to work in March of last year. It appeared as a complete halo except for a small segment at the bottom which was below the horizon. The inner edge was tinged with red and the sky inside the halo appeared darker than the sky outside. Once again, ice crystals in the atmosphere are the cause. They both reflect and refract the sunlight.
22 degree solar halo 2 March 2011 / Copyright 2012 Robert D. Vickers, Jr.
… beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.
— Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
