Sundogs or 22° halo? Imaged by Norma Wallace at Christopher Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada. ©Norma Wallace, shown with permission |
It's thought - but not proven - that large plate crystals flutter downwards, relative to local cloud air currents, like autumn leaves. Greatest tilts would be at the ends of the pendulum like swings. But we do not know for certain. |
About - Submit | Optics Picture of the Day | Galleries | Previous | Next | Today |
HaloSim ray tracings for plate crystals with increasing tilts and a low sun. The values are the standard deviation for a Gaussian tilt distribution. There's no evidence that real crystals have Gaussian tilts! |
Extreme sundogs are made by almost horizontal plate crystals. Extreme 22° halos are from hexagonal crystals of some sort – probably clusters – tumbling in all directions. At low sun, plate crystals of increasing wobble give taller sundogs which can also be considered to be ever increasing segments of the 22° halo. The latter does not need random orientations – plates and columns with large tilts also generate it. |