Glory ~ Seen by Thomas Goodey over northern Romania while flying from Suceava to Bucharest in a relatively low prop plane. ©Thomas Goodey, shown with permission.
A beautifully subtle glory drifting across the clouds with the airplane. The glory's centre is characteristically white and is surrounded by one or more coloured rings. Here there are two.
Cloud water droplets backscatter light to form the glory and the ring number depends on how uniform are the drop sizes. 'Old' clouds with a wide drop size distribution produce overlapping glories of different sizes. The result can be that the rings are blurred out and that is then seen is a soft glow at the location of the glory centre.
To see a glory check the clouds on the side of the aircraft away from the sun. The glory is located directly opposite the sun and often surround the airplane shadow.
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