Reflected sunray

It was the 21st of June in 2010, when I came back from work in the evening and prepared my photo equipment for some time-lapse experiments of the very intensive sunrays currently shining. I was late and just wanted to get one last visual impression from my balcony before walking down to the river and shooting the pictures. What I saw was pretty amazing, so that it took some seconds to get the camera working.

The reflected sunray remained for 50s since my first view. I took 4 pictures of it and made a small animation. The occurrence of that common sunray on the same cloud baseline seems to be at random, due to the fact that the reflected ray moves with reduced speed.

Some discussions revealed that the river itself could not cause the mirror effect, because the surface of running water is too unsettled and not plane enough to produce such a shapely reflection. A calm and wind-protected surface is the harbour basin in a distance of about 3km in the direction of the sun. Further waters in that direction are more distant (>10km).

I kept an eye on comparable situations to get these reflections again, but without success so far. You should be watchful on the following conditions:
- intensive sunrays of course
- low altitude of the sun (to get long distanced rays)
- dark clouds in the short distance (to get the contrasts)

Place : Dresden, Germany
Time : 21 June 2010
DSLR Camera : Canon EOS 1000 D
Exposure : 1/80 sec, f/55mm, F/7.1, ISO 200

Author: Eik Beier, Dresden, Germany

Alpenglow and Crepuscular Rays from above

In the morning of November 11, 2010, Anke Morbitzer from Gladbeck, Germany could enjoy the alpenglow from above during a flight from Milan over the Bern and Pennine Alps. Especially impressive were the shadows of the mountains being projected upward into the haze. Just before, also the upcoming twilight with its impressive colours had been very exciting.

Perspective of a crepuscular ray

We most always notice crepuscular rays as fingers of light and darkness that stretch toward us from the horizon.

However, on occasion it’s possible to observe them “sideways”. The photo above offering such a view was taken from Kämpfelbach (Germany), at sunset, as the cumulonimbus anvil at far right effectively blocked sunlight from reaching the low hills in the distance – middle and left.

Note that the wedge-shaped, blue-gray shadow from this towering cloud extends all of the way to the antisolar point. Photo taken on April 22, 2011

Author: Michael Großmann, Kämpfelbach, Germany

Shadows and lights of a flight

Many people find flights boring – but not all! If you are lucky to be seated by a window you can always find something interesting in the air beside or below the airplane. David Lukacs from Hungary took this picture on 2nd November 2009 on a flight from Rome to Budapest, about 15 minutes after the departure. A thin layer of haze was between the plane and the sea so the sun shining on the right side above the plane could cast radial shadows on the left below. The beams of shadow and light join at the antisolar point.

A bit later when the plane travelled above a cloud layer David also noticed a nice glory below them:

Even the shadow of the airplane appeared in the middle:

Posted by Noli

Thunderstorm shadows

In the evening of June 29, 2009, several thunderstorms formed unexpectedly over northwestern Germany, from the Ruhr area northward to southern Lower Saxony. They brought rainfalls up to 30 liters per square meter.

As the sun was almost setting, the shadows of the storm clouds reached a length of several hundred kilometers. The satellite picture taken at 19.15 UTC = 21.15 CEST shows the shadows extending even up to Thuringia and northern Bavaria.

Unfortunately, there are no reports on crepuscular rays from the area southeast of the thunderstorms.

Author: Peter Krämer, Bochum, Germany
Satellite image with kind permission of DWD (German Weather Office)

Shadows casting shadows

In the late afternoon of February 10, 2008, my friend and I went to a little pond on a field in Bochum, Germany, to take a few landscape photographs. It was a sunny day with a cloudless sky and no wind, so that the sun could be reflected very well from the smooth surface of the pond.

When we went along the pond, our shadows fell upon the water. As the sun was very low – it was about one hour before sunset – our shadows extended over the whole width of the pond, with the heads just beneath a bush positioned on the other side of the pond. Suddenly I noticed two fainter shadows just above the heads of our shadows, moving over the bush. When we stopped, these additional shadows appeared only as two faint stripes extending upwards across the bush from the heads of our shadows, as it can be seen in the wide-angle picture.

But when we moved, the phenomenon became quite obvious. So I did not only take a few photographs, but also made a short video with my digital camera. The video can be watched here.

What caused these additional shadows? First I thought that they were just the reflections of our shadows on the water, but when I later thought about my observation, I realized that it was a little bit more complicated:
The sun was shining on the water, and the sunlight was reflected from the smooth water surface. From the other side of the pond there could be seen a reflected picture of the sun in the water. This picture – or, better said – the reflected sunlight fell upon the bush, together of course with the direct sunlight. So the bush received direct light from the sun and also reflected light from the water surface.

When our shadows fell upon the water, the shadowed parts of the water could not reflect any more sunlight, so that the areas above the shadows received only the direct sunlight. So the parts of the bush which did not get the additional reflected light appeared less bright than the rest of it forming two slightly darker stripes extending upward from our shadows. So, what we saw were two secondary shadows, the shadows of our shadows. For a visual explanation of the phenomenon, I also drew a skech of the situation.

Never before I had thought that a shadow could also cast a shadow, and this observation was only possible because it was absolutely calm that afternoon. The slightest wind would have caused ripples on the water and thus blurred those secondary shadows.

Author: Peter Krämer, Bochum, Germany

Shadow Rays above Pithead Rig

In the morning of December 21, 2007, a beam of shadow rays appeared above the pithead rig of the German Minery Museum in Bochum, Germany.

The picture was taken at about 10 a.m., one hour after sunrise. As the sun elevation was still very low, the shadow of the pithead rig was projected upwards and became visible as a beam of shadow rays in a thin layer of mist near the ground. A similar phenomenon can sometimes be seen above a pylon or tower, but there only one single dark ray appears. The shape of the pithead rig, however, made a beam of four shadow rays appear.

Author: Peter Krämer, Bochum, Germany

Summer twilight rays

Bright twilight rays on 16 July, 2008 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They stretched nearly all the way across the peaceful evening sky. This photo was taken 20 minutes after sunset. I enjoyed the view from our front deck for about 10 more minutes.

Author: Peg Zenko, Wisconsin, USA

Crepuscular ray 1 hour after sunset

On September 12th Claudia Hinz observed the sunset from the 1835m high Wendelstein Observatory.

At 19.18 CET (Daylight saving) the sun disappeared behind a 250 km distant thunder cloud over the Black Forest, Schwarzwald, in South Eastern Germany. Then the sun would have been ~2° above the astronomical horizon. The sea level horizon was 197 km distant and dipped 1.4°.

At around 20.00 sheet lightning was noticed on the horizon.

At 20.15 a 30° long crepuscular ray was formed by the thundercloud. At that time, nearly an hour after sunset, the sun was 8° below the astronomical horizon. The ray was faint but clearly seen over the remaining twilight colours. The image was made with a 150mm lens and a 4s exposure.

Alder corona with iridescence and cloud rays

The 27th of March was in a manner of speaking one of our first warm days this year. Owing to the long and cold winter together with the abrupt change the plants exploded into life and produced a very strong pollen concentration in the air. The humidity was very low and so the resulting pollen coronae stood out against the dry sky. The coronae originated from from alders which are very common in the area (Barsinghausen, near Hannover). Hazel were also flowering at that time but would have made a different form of corona.

That day Reinhard Nitze took very unusual pictures of the alder coronae. On the one hand the coronae were intense but appeared together with another phenomena, e.g. with iridescence clouds or cloud rays. Sometimes, however, Reinhard saw them “undecorated”.