Cedar Pollen Corona
I saw this extremely splendid cedar pollen corona on May 19, 2005 at Hachioji, Tokyo. Last year, the amount of cedar pollen was so large that we could observe some beautiful coronae (but it was a nightmare for people caught by hay fever).
Cypress pollen is another source of pollen coronae in Japan. However, the season of Japanese cypress pollen is almost same as that of our cedar pollen so that it is hard to distinguish its contribution from the cedar pollen”s contribution. (The amount of cypress pollen is less than cedar pollen.)
Posted by Yuji Ayatsuka
Posted on May 14, 2011, in coronae and iridescence, observations, pollen and algae phenomena and tagged pollen corona. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
Atmospheric Phenomena 
Michael Ellestad said…
Wow that is very spendid indeed!! I have not seen any nice optics in a while except a rainbow with anticrepuscular rays.
Claudia Hinz said…
Thanks for this wunderful picture. There are really unusual colours, particularly the inside cyan. The pollen of ceder (http://www.pollenwarndienst.at/index.php?language=de&nav=_n7&module=article&action=first_page&id=2123&id_parent=2057) are similarly structured like the European Pine or Spruce pollen, for this you should have to low sun elevation the characteristic “lumps” in the corona?
Yuji Ayatsuka said…
Maybe Japanese cedar is somehow different from European cedar. Pollen of Japanese cedar is almost oval so that we cannot see “lumps” in the corona but little bit elliptical shape when the sun is low.
Timo Kuhmonen said…
Could this cyan color (nearest to sun in original image) be generated by the raw converter on the in-camera software that generates a jpg-image ?? If color cast is present, it usually appears on the edge of area where image has burned white.