Atmospheric
Optics
About - Submit Optics Picture of the Day Galleries Previous Next Today  
                              
Subsun, China

Sighted by Qianzhengrong, , on a flight from Beijing to Chengdu.

Later, a subparhelion (image below) appeared. Afterwards the plane flew into another cloud mass and a 22° halo and sundogs were visible.

 Images ©Qianzhengrong
Both upper and lower hexagonal faces mirror the sun.

The solar reflection appears the same distance below the horizon as the sun is above it.
A subparhelion appeared later.


Subsuns are sometimes shockingly bright. This one was.

Plate crystals are responsible. Untold millions of them reflect the sun from their upper and lower near horizontal faces.

The reflection is enlarged when the crystals wobble slightly. Even larger wobbles generate a lower sun pillar. There are vestiges of a pillar in the photograph. Some clouds above and below the subsun are suspiciously bright.

Look carefully around a subsun for rare Bottlinger's rings.