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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Sun Pillar?


I was up early today...as usual here at the Elliott house and spotted this amazing sunrise over the lake. I posted the shot at Flickr and Chris from Design Digitals replied with this about the streak of light coming up from the middle of the sun:


Is it a sun pillar - I'm not clever, just looked it up!From ‘Peterson Field Guides: Atmosphere’: The pillar is produce by thin hexagonal plates floating in the air with their largest dimension horizontal. The rays of the sun are reflected from the top surface of one to the bottom surface of another, reinforcing the rays in a vertical direction


Chris, thanks for the speedy quick look up of the 'Peterson Field Guide'. I love learning something new everyday!

2 comments:

  1. Very cool photo and thanks for the info. Never heard of that before.

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  2. It's the first time I've heard of sun pillars, too. Love the colors in this shot.

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