Atmospheric
Optics
Antisolar Rays
Chris Morton looked east near sunset from Cornwall, England.
Faint dark beams converge towards a point below the horizon and opposite the sun. They are anticrepuscular rays or better called antisolar rays, long shadows that traverse the sky from sunward clouds.
This view conveys well their customary subtle appearance, faint, hinting, elusive, shifting. They are there more oft than is thought.
Image ©Chris Morton, shown with permission
The shadows always slope downwards parallel to the sun's rays.
All shadows are directed to the antisolar point.
They appear to converge as the get more distant.
They darken towards the antisolar point because the eye is looking along a greater length of the shadow pipe.
