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Sky
Colours, Arizona Sometimes coloured
patches appear in the sky that are unlike 'ordinary'
rainbows in shape. Jodi Moses caught this from Taylor
Arizona looking East towards New Mexico late afternoon
in July '06. ©Jodi
Moses,
shown with permission.
Why an odd coloured patch?
The
sun was ~30° high and
the antisolar point, opposite the sun, was to the right of
the image. If there had been rain nearby, a whole
rainbow would have been seen
roughly along the coloured lines. Instead, the rain shower
was far away and falling in slanting streaks. Where the rain
was at the correct angle to the sun (i.e on the rainbow
cone)
it lit up in rainbow colours. The patch has a vertical
appearance because the eye is guided by the near vertical rain
streaks.
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