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Laura Milholland | all galleries >> Scenics/Trips >> Marin County >> West Marin >> White House Pool Access > Sundog - an "Icebow"
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23-JAN-2011 Laura Milholland

Sundog - an "Icebow"

White House Pool Acess, Point Reyes, CA

An icebow is a phenomenon similar to a rainbow except that it is formed by the refraction of sunlight through cloud suspended ice crystals.
Brighter sections usually occur above, below, and lateral to the center (where the sun is visible).
These bright areas are referred to as "sun dogs," "parhelia" (plural), or mock suns
because of their bright appearance and possible confusion with the actual location of the sun.
Those icebows that are caused by very small ice crystals are one color,
because diffraction blurs the colors together.
A 22 degree icebow has red on the inside and blue on the outside.

Nikon D300 ,Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 G AF-S
1/1600s f/10.0 at 78.0mm iso200 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
comment
Ruth Voorhis30-Jan-2011 14:00
Excellent catch!
fotabug28-Jan-2011 02:21
So beautiful
Jack Hoying27-Jan-2011 11:56
Good catch. I haven't seen one since we were in the Canadian Rockies
Eloine 27-Jan-2011 05:35
Very cool! I have been trying to get one of these!
Rich Strobel27-Jan-2011 04:46
Good catch Laura and thanks for the description of this phenomenon.